Asinine Rationalizations
by Geno Calamari
Summary: Sasuke's moment comes, Ino has some fun, Tenten strikes a blow for the underdog, Hinata soaks up grief she doesn't deserve, Sakura receives some shocking news and Naruto takes it 'like a man.' Rough roads ahead for all.
1. Asinine Rationalizations

Critical Note: STOP RIGHT NOW! If you haven't read 'Something or Other,' don't read this. Go to my profile, click the link provided, and read it _first_. This is important, because this is the non-lemony continuation of that vein, and it'll be sort of difficult to make out some of the things I'm talking about (like the shampoo) if you haven't read the other piece.

'_If there are any words of wisdom you wish to be remembered by, Uzumaki Naruto, I am the man to whom you should say them.'  
__-Hyuuga Neji, on the day of Uzumaki's ascendancy to the position of Hokage._

'_It's like twelve fics jammed into one, b__ut I really enjoy this one. I get to be sarcastic and crude and downright _snide_.'  
__- Geno Calamari, in reference to 'Asinine Rationalizations'_

Asinine Rationalizations  
_By Geno Calamari_

He asks her to stay the night with him.

She stays for a week.

He should be ecstatic, be he isn't. He loves being with her, sleeping next to her, being held by her, and being around her. He loves the sound of her voice, the slow cadence of her breathing as she slumbers, the careful, dignified way she eats. He also loves the demure word games she plays when she's on the hunt, the look in her eyes when she gets what she wants, and the way she smiles when she's satisfied. He _loves_ satisfying her.

She is staying with him, coming home to him in the evening, sharing the chores, helping with dinner and it's a wonderful change from the dark and quiet little apartment of just a few days ago. She's sleeping in his bed, in his _arms_. They've always been more than friends, yes, but they're actually acting like lovers now.

It confuses him. This should be what he wants. It is certainly what he's _dreamed _of. He's had her in all the naughty and delicious ways a man can have a woman, so Naruto doesn't fantasize about her that way. His dreams are domestic in nature and purpose.

It _scares _him, to tell the truth. Because Sakura-chan doesn't take the drop-out, dead-last, idiot demon-boy losers for lovers. She takes the brilliant, genius, and incredibly handsome (though tempered by the effeminate) men like Uchiha Sasuke, Hyuuga Neji, or even (as much as it unnerves him to imagine) Hatake Kakashi.

She uses the demon-boy as it suits her and then leaves him when her needs are fulfilled. Naruto thought he had accepted this _years_ ago, but apparently he's still uneasy with the whole situation.

The clock is displaying 6:30 in glaring green numbers, like a pair of accusing eyes saying 'You're going to be late!'

He hates that clock. All he wants to do is lay here and feel her body against his for just a few more minutes. But he can't. He's got a job to do and he has to be responsible. He _is_ responsible, he tells himself, but cannot help but wonder exactly _when_ it happened to him.

Slowly, the blonde man extricates himself from his sleeping… what, lover? Best-Friend-with-Benefits? He does not know anymore. Regardless, he tries not to awaken her. It works, to a degree. He gets up and out of the bed, but she rolls over into the space he occupied, searching for the reassuring warmth of his body in her sleep. The delicate equilibrium ninja are forced to establish to fall asleep is broken and she will wake soon. Her subconscious has picked up on changes in the conscious environment and will reactivate her conscious mind soon. It's only a matter of minutes, probably.

He had better be gone by the time she wakes, or he'll be really late then.

He grabs some clothes, clean and folded, because she's doing the laundry now and he wonders how he ever lived without her exacting folding before. The bathroom door swings aside, crashing against the toilet louder than he wants and he winces, praying she didn't wake. He twists on the water in his small shower and jumps in immediately. It takes five minutes for hot water to reach his third-floor apartment and that is five minutes he does not have.

It is cold. Terribly, awfully cold in the way that showers should not be. He doesn't flinch. He's been this late quite a lot recently, and he's finally getting used to bathing in ice-water.

Naruto reaches for the shampoo, because despite what people say about him, he understands the basics of hygiene. He snorts, thinking quite nastily that Kiba never has.

His eyes flit to a lilac-colored bottle with several elegant kanji emblazoned into the plastic and a picture of a half-bloomed flower adorning the front. He knows this bottle very well. Almost intimately. It's Sakura's bottle of her special shampoo. If he had to guess, he'd say it was imported, probably grass country or water country or someplace like that.

She found that bottle three days ago, under the sink along with several other feminine products that she abandoned here while she was dating Sasuke. Whenever that topic comes up in conversation, she calls it 'when we were _off_' and he doesn't really like that euphemism, because they were never really _on_, either.

Already, the bottle has reclaimed its interim position in his shower. It has been sitting under the bathroom sink for almost three months now. He knew exactly where it was the entire time. Every time he's in the bathroom, he can't help but think about it. Can't help but think about what it represents.

She left him for Sasuke, although leaving him pretty much consisted of 'stop coming over to fuck,' and every morning she was with _him_ Naruto got a nice reminder in the shower. Every time he looked at that bottle, he remembered her hair.

In the beginning, after she announced that she was dating the Uchiha, he used to open the top of the bottle and let the scent waft up to him, because it reminded him of her and what they used to have and that was enough. It was something that he never expected to have again. The realization of loss had set in and he pushed the feelings of grief and remorse away. Eventually he couldn't bear the scent of her shampoo, because it was just too painful. It wasn't like she's dead, he told himself, but after what they had, what they _shared_, it felt as if she were a million miles away. As good as dead.

She came back once, and he really tried to make it just like it used to be… but he couldn't. He had missed her too much. There was too much emotion in it, too much longing and desire and _pain_ in him that he made love to her. He had never done that before, always toeing the line and keeping his feelings separate (as separate as he could)… and he regretted failing at that critical moment. Maybe if he hadn't, she could have stayed?

She didn't return the feeling, but he had come to accept that she wasn't _entirely_ giving over to being with him when they were together. There was always a small part of her that just wasn't focused on the 'task' at hand. The last time they were together, all those months ago, he blasted through all of her defenses and forced her to focus solely on him. Then, as if to say, 'Look what I can do, only I can do this to you and it's over now,' he up and asked her to leave and never come back. Not in so many words, mind you, but he just couldn't handle the up and down, on and off of it anymore.

So the months passed. That stupid little bottle just kept sitting there, daring him to look at its beautiful calligraphy and roseate flower and remember _her_. One day, he just couldn't stand the sight of it anymore. So he threw it under the sink, because he couldn't stand to look at it anymore, but he couldn't bring himself to get rid of it, either. Naruto still hoped she would come back, and wanted to be ready for her when she did.

He hated that bottle; it reminded him of a time when he didn't have anything…

"Wow, Hinata-chan! You're living your dream. Good for you!" he had said to that dark-haired weirdo girl that always seemed to be looking at him. He had really meant it, because she worked so hard for it and he respected hard work. It was plain to anyone that she was nearing exhaustion when she finished that rigorous medic-nin training in four years instead of eight.

He had smiled for her, because he didn't want her to see his pain. She was happy, she had achieved something, and she deserved to hear the praise. She had blushed. She was still in love with him. He had noticed, eventually, but his heart was for another.

Boy, that would have been easy, wouldn't it? Just take Hinata. She's like the consolation girlfriend. You didn't win the fabulous vacation package, but that's alright. Get married to this girl and have a ton of blank-eyed, highly determined, half-demon children. Then everyone would have been happy, right?

Wrong. Though not totally.

Her accomplishment had made him happy, given him a second-wind. Life was hard. He had lost Sakura-chan. Three years of intimacy, _three fucking years_, and she gives it up when that _bastard _waltzes through the door, cool as can be. She didn't even soften the blow, didn't even say goodbye. But it was okay. He's a ninja and ninja know that their relationships can be terminated at any moment, often fatally. At least everyone survived, and that makes his love-life several notches better than a sizable fraction of affairs in Konoha. Odds are bad that a long-term relationship with a shinobi will last.

Odds get _worse_, if you can imagine it, when both partners are ninja.

It was strange to him now, looking back on it, that he was never angry at her. He couldn't be, because he understood that her heart was for Sasuke, even if she let Naruto have her body. Because Sakura-chan's heart was something pure and good and perfect, and she could do whatever she damn well pleased in his opinion, and if anyone had anything contrary to say about it, they'd have to answer to Uzumaki Naruto.

The water is warming up now. He hasn't even done any washing yet.

He had lost her. She was gone, gone away to be happy and he was devastated. It was like his heart had broken in two. He didn't want to get out of bed, so he hadn't. After three days of not showing up for meetings, Tsunade had threatened him with permanent removal from duty and that just wouldn't do. After breaking down the door of his apartment with her incessant knocking.

It hurt that Hinata had found happiness, had achieved her dream and Naruto still had so far to go. It didn't seem fair. But then, he found himself admitting that life had never been fair to him.

So he got up, went back to work, and did a damn fine job of it. He didn't let anyone see how much it hurt him, didn't let them see him bleed to death slowly. He laughed and joked and acted every bit the 'stupid goofball he had always been that grew up and became the dependable Commander of the ANBU,' the guy who doesn't care if the entire Hidden Village of Stone arrayed against him, because he could fight them all and win. The mask worked while he was out of the house and no one knew. He could kill and maim and fight to the death without anyone ever suspecting he was crying on the inside. There was no compunction, no hesitation, just ruthless efficiency.

It was all he needed to get him through his missions. And that was all that mattered to him anymore.

Naruto remembers Uchiha Itachi. Can't forget him. Won't forget him. He remembers that Itachi once held his job title. The blonde's mind has been flirting with the assumption that the ANBU pushed the rogue Uchiha over that final precipice… into the spiraling darkness of insanity.

Would this job do the same to him? The answer eludes him even at this late junction.

The blonde sighs. He never figured he'd get so thoughtful over _shampoo_, of all things.

But every morning he got a look at that bottle and it all came rushing back. Every bit of time they spent together, every gentle caress, and he just couldn't take looking at it anymore. He only kept the bottle there out of a fragile, misguided belief that she might actually come back.

_What was it they said?_ he struggles to remember, _'If you love something, let it go. If it was meant to be, it'll come back to you.'_ He snorts, water running down his face. In his opinion, that's bullshit. If you love something, keep it close. Never let go or it'll slip away. He didn't keep Sakura-chan close enough and she slipped away. It was no fault of hers. The blame lay squarely on his shoulders.

Protect something, love something, and treat it well, and it will never have a _reason _to leave you. _That's _the truth.

He should have nailed something solid down. He should have taken her aside and sorted out their relationship. He should have talked to her that first morning. So many different things they could have done, he could have done, to make it turn out right but now it's all so much dust and memories.

The door clanks off the porcelain bowl again. He looks up, startled out of his reverie, though Naruto instinctively knows who it is.

She draws back the shower curtain; he's never gotten around to getting a nice pane of frosted glass. His eyes nearly fall out of his head.

Sakura is not wearing anything. It takes him a moment to start breathing again. He wonders how, after all this time together and all the times he's done more than _see_ her body, she can do this to him. There is a hint of a smile on her lips as her pale jade eyes rove his wet skin.

She likes having this effect on him. Mischievous bitch.

Without a word, she steps into the shower, blinking sleepily. He moves back to make room for her, but the shower isn't that big and she ends up pressed against him as they both stand under the showerhead. Neither of them seems uncomfortable with this situation. This is actually a common occurrence for them. At any rate, she ignores the obvious effect she's having on his body and that makes it even more erotic. He bites his lip as she reaches for something over his left shoulder.

She squeezes some shampoo into her hand and begins to lather her hair. For a second, his eyes drift closed, mind getting lost in the fragrant scent of lilacs and juniper that he associates with her. It is a smell that reminds him though things were once awful, terrible, and bleak, life is on the upshot now.

He resists the urge for just a moment, then threads his fingers into her wet pink locks. Gently, he massages the foamy concoction all the way down to her scalp. She closes her eyes and lets him work, purring ever-so-softly. Naruto has ninja-ears and can hear it as though it were on a loudspeaker. It makes him smile. Sakura only ever makes that noise when she's really relaxed. The pink-haired woman also knows what it does to her blonde… well, regardless of what he is to her, he's _hers_.

It is only friendly for a moment. Then something inside Naruto changes and he can't hold back anymore.

His breath is hot against her neck, hotter than the near-scalding water. His fingertips graze over her hips, obviously trying to grasp hold of her but thinking better of it. She hands him the washcloth, the only one in the shower, and he begins the arduous task of washing her body. There is something distinctly unfair about this situation to him, but he forgets about it promptly when she whimpers softly under his ministrations and he realizes that he's dropped the piece of fabric and is rolling her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. She sure isn't voicing _complaint_.

"Wash my back?" she asks huskily, but his mouth is shut tightly. There is something suggestive in her voice and he recognizes it immediately. It also helps him to understand her meaning when her left hand starts doing some interesting things below his waist. Her eyes lock on to his and even though he can still see the sleepiness there, he can clearly see the evidence of desire. Burning, smoldering, all-consuming, 'don't resist me' desire.

As if he could.

When it comes to Sakura, Naruto lacks the critical ability to say 'No.' He considers it for a quick moment, then spins her around to face him so fast she loses her grip on it. With a sound somewhat like a growl but most definitely still a hiss, he presses his lips against hers and pins her against the shower wall. Her little squeals of pleasured shock make him all the more eager to take her. His mouth is hot against her neck and his hands are possessive and insistent, but Sakura does not mind. This is what she is looking for.

After a while, the water turns cold again, but all _that _does is make her hold him tighter.

* * *

_Man oh fucking man, I'm fucking late_, he thinks as he steps from the door of his run-down little apartment. It is now almost nine in the morning, but for a man like Naruto, he doesn't do _anything_ quickly. He shouldn't have stayed. He should have said no, but as per usual, he took one look into her eyes and all his carefully-crafted guards and wards came crashing down. 

She does that to him, and he has no idea why. Naruto doesn't work with words, and he doesn't know how to put emotions into them, but he does _understand_ them perfectly. He understands that he loves Sakura, perhaps a little obsessively, but obsession is a very common disorder among ninja. Sakura used to be obsessed with Sasuke just as he used to be obsessed with Itachi, who in turn was obsessed with gaining power and that lead him to Gaara of the Desert who really, really had some sort of whacked out obsession with blood, death and suffering (not necessarily in that order, mind you.)

Hinata was obsessed with Naruto and watched him just as reverently, though he didn't know it. What, did you think that Byakugan was only useful for seeing Inner Coils? Tch. Speaking of Hyuuga, Neji used to prattle on about fate, and that was an obsession everyone didn't mourn when he finally shook it off. Naruto used to be obsessed with ramen and being the Hokage just as much as Kakashi loved reading Icha Icha Paradise, which was written by a man _so_ obsessed with women, he proclaimed himself 'Super-Pervert' when he found no one believed his lies anymore.

But now that we've touched on the subject of the sennin, we can rightly say that Orochimaru used to be obsessed with gaining every jutsu in the world to become all-powerful, as though that would actually work. Used to be, because Orochimaru is dead now, and good riddance they say. And that old hag Tsunade is so obsessed with gambling (and, to a lesser degree, her long-dead little brother and fiancé) it was a wonder that she didn't fritter away all of Konoha's money.

_C'mon now, _he thinks, _they opened up a whole mess of casinos in town when they heard the Legendary Sucker was settling down._ He chuckles mirthlessly as he strolls toward the ANBU headquarters, a flat three-story building without adornment half-a-mile from the Hokage Tower, where he's guaranteed to be chewed out by _somebody_ for being late.

After _that_, though, it's probably worth it.

But, in essence, obsession isn't always such a bad thing. A small amount of obsession can be classified as 'determination' or 'focus' very easily, so the line is rather blurry. Everyone thinks that Rock Lee is determined to defeat Neji and determined to train himself into oblivion, but how is that functionally distinct from obsession? It isn't, but the _connotations_ the words have are as far apart as the sun and the moon.

And Naruto's obsessions aren't harmful to anyone but himself, unlike just about everyone else's, so it's okay. Self-deprecation is funny that way.

His stomach rumbles and he considers the merits of stopping off at Ichiraku for a bowl or seven. Sadly, the idea of getting smacked up side the head by Shikamaru for wasting time on food does not appeal to him. On his way to work, he purchases yakitori from a street vendor. She is a woman in her late-thirties, he would guess, but he's a terrible judge of age and cannot put an exact year to her. He hands her several large coins, easily worth more than three times what this morsel of food is worth.

The woman's daughter is with her and she looks to be no older than eight. The child smiles at him in that sweet and innocent way little girls have. He tips his head to the side, then raises the fox mask to smile back. He is 183 centimeters in height and when fully outfitted in the ANBU uniform he has a tendency to make people nervous. It is something he dislikes, so he goes out of his way to be friendly and open with everyone, even if he has been feeling like shit for the past eighteen months.

His grin is wide and friendly, but he can feel the woman tense behind her food cart. He looks back to her and his heart sinks.

She has recognized the whisker marks on his face, the wild blonde hair and coupled it with the fox-faced mask and black fatigues. He's the Commander of the ANBU and he's right here at her stall, smiling at her daughter.

It's not a look of awe in her eyes, though he's sure there is some in there… somewhere.

It's fear. This woman knows what he _is _and it frightens her. He doesn't blame her; he's grown out of that stage. Her daughter, however, is looking at him with new, childlike wonder. To her, she's heard stories of his accomplishments and who he _is_, but as a little girl, she hasn't heard all the gory details that sully his crisp, clean image. He is the man who will one day become Hokage, because everyone knows better than to disbelieve or underestimate him. And he must look like a benevolent god to her, the way he smiles easily and hands over money without care.

It helps that she has never seen the bloodstains. It allows him to keep that 'Collected and Calm' image of the Noble ANBU soldier intact. There are days when he hates being Bishamon to these kids…

This is the natural progression of things when you get to the level Naruto is currently enjoying. He is _powerful_. The most powerful ninja in Konoha, and his reputation says as much without preamble. Naruto enjoyed the favor of the Sandaime Hokage (rest him), is one of the two living _blood relatives _of the Yondaime Hokage (bless him), enjoys the ear of the Godaime Hokage (preserve her), and is a shoe-in to be the Rokudaime Hokage. He is the Commander of the ANBU and is the only person on the face of creation that can make Gaara of the Desert back down.

For example, Hyuuga Hiashi, the leader of the oldest and strongest clan in Konoha, bows discreetly to him in the street as he passes. This is because, if Naruto wanted to, he could wipe out his entire clan without breaking a sweat, Neji being the exception. Hiashi has learned something important in his years in Konoha. He has learned to respect strength, especially of the overwhelming kind. Hiashi learned an abject lesson from the Bloodline-Death incident. The Uchiha didn't learn the lesson when they had the chance and disrespected Itachi (he suspects this is true, but he has no proof. Itachi was very methodical and _highly_ thorough) and _that_ proved their undoing. So he bows and scrapes a little bit, because it's a sacrifice he'd gladly make for the clan. His Byakugan can see the boy is no threat… as long as he's placated.

Naruto is a legend. He is infamous. The children love his daring escapades and devil-may-care attitude and cannot wait for the day someone so cool becomes Hokage and gives a little bit of that coolness to all Leaf-nin. They all want to grow up to be just like him, be just as strong as him, because they are young and they do not understand what that will demand of them. Their parents silently lament the corruption that blonde brat is sowing in their minds and lament not-so-silently every time they see him that he'll be the death of Konoha when he becomes Hokage.

They shut up right quick when he looks at them though, because he's touchy about it and he might go off at any moment, after all. He hasn't bothered to correct that preconception yet.

His friends… well, he brought them along for the ride, dragging them up the ladder with him in a mad steeplechase not to be left behind by the dead-last loser. Aburame Shino still creeps the hell out of him while he gets into raging (now three-way) arguments with Inuzuka Kiba and Yamanaka Ino. Putting those three in a room together for any length of time is a recipe for instant remodeling. Shikamaru is lazy, yes, but he's got a purpose now. That sort of thing happens when your best friend dies on your watch. Hinata… well, no one really sees her much these days, but he _hears_ she's doing great things. Rock Lee is enjoying his first genin team to no end and forces them to wear his favorite green unitard. Maito Gai couldn't be more proud.

And Neji has become something of a legend himself. He's the official sparring-partner-cum-guy-who-gets-beat-on by Uzumaki Naruto. It's okay, because he likes to slip in moves that are lethal and call it an 'accident.' It's the quickest way to promotion for him, after all, and Naruto's not in any _appreciable_ danger, (which pisses Neji off.) People think he's the shit because he can stand up to Naruto in a one-on-one fight and there are _very _few people who can do that anymore.

But more than anything, the citizenry are _afraid_ of him. He's powerful, unpredictable, mentally unstable, and the Hokage just _refuses_ to see the danger in him. That's a volatile combination in their minds, but as people often do, they would rather just wait for Naruto to crack up and flash-fry half of Konoha and then point their fingers as if to say 'I Told You So' instead of _doing _anything about it. Because it is better to be right in the end then prevent tragedies from happening.

People are stupid sometimes.

The woman tells her daughter to go get something from the house, but her eyes don't leave the blonde ANBU. The little girl doesn't notice but he _does_. Naruto is used to this and takes it in stride. The little girl looks at her mother quizzically for a second, then waves a shy goodbye to him.

He doesn't look away from the woman behind the stand, but where she cannot see him he waves in a friendly manner to the girl. She skips away, her manners and compassion satisfied.

It strikes him that another little girl will probably grow up wanting to be an ANBU after today…

There is an odd pause. Then, as though he were waiting for it to cool, he takes a bite of his yakitori.

"It's good," he says, careful not to display his preternaturally sharp canines, "Thanks."

The woman nods but does not give him change. Naruto doesn't ask for it, knowing it a futile effort. It's not like he spends his money on his apartment, after all, so he has more than he knows what to do with. He walks away without another word.

There is something unfortunate in being the only shinobi in Konoha with the audacity to wear a fox mask.

It's just as unfortunate to be the only shinobi in Konoha with the legalized _right_ to wear one.

* * *

Haruno Sakura rolls over, enjoying the soft texture of Naruto's bed against her skin. It is warm and cozy and she does not want to get up, but it's already a few minutes before noon and she's hungry. Cursed need for food, she grumbles, it always seems to get in the way of a perfectly good nap. 

Sighing, she rolls out of bed, still unclothed and begins a hunt for something to wear and something to eat. The first is satisfied quickly, as she stumbles over a suitcase full of her belongings. She has not unpacked since she came from Sasuke's house almost a week ago. She stares blearily at the calendar on the wall. _No, a week as of today, _she corrects.

It is odd how time flies. She told herself that she was going to find a place to live in the morning, and her she was, no new apartment, no new abode. Hell, she didn't even have a lair beyond this little room, a seedy den of pleasure and sex… _and comfort and safety, _she admits reluctantly.

As long as she has been a ninja, Sakura has never wanted to be protected. It is only now that she is beginning to understand the difference between being protected and being safe. Being protected is a slight against her capabilities, yes, but being safe is really what she wants. It's what everyone wants, essentially. Comfort and security.

She's safe with Naruto. It has taken her this long to realize it. Naruto will never hurt her, and she knows this. Because despite what everyone says about him, despite the _thing_ in his stomach, despite his brash and foolish mask, she knows one thing.

His eyes are never red when he's fucking her, no matter how hot and passionate it gets. And that's critically important in her mind.

She's seen what he can do under the thrall of that demon. She knows just how powerful Uzumaki Naruto is, but she knows that he would never, ever wish her ill. It's not the way he works. He loves her too much. Naruto has learned how to kill without hesitating, and though it does not sit well with him, he can still do it. He has learned to leash a demon that killed hundreds of the finest shinobi in the world and can point and use it as easily as one can throw a shuriken. But nothing in the world, not pain nor fire nor threat of death would make him hurt his precious Sakura-chan.

And if anyone _did_ hurt her, she could be sure that Naruto would give them about five seconds to consider their mistake before disemboweling them. He has done it before.

The Akatsuki agent Katsuragi, the poison-master, decided it would be a good idea to take her hostage once. Sakura considers herself to be very, very lucky to be alive. It was in her favor that Katsuragi wasn't interested in her directly, just using her as both shield and bait.

She shivers. Katsuragi made Itachi look downright civil, and she had never considered cold-blooded, premeditated sociopathic behavior to be a form of civility. It's funny how sadism can change your outlook on such things. Thankfully, Itachi had a sense of honor, twisted as it may have been, and was never sadistic. He just killed you dead without fucking around. In many ways, that's a better deal than being tortured.

After what Naruto did to Katsuragi, conveniently out of sight but not out of earshot, the rest of the Akatsuki decided that it would be a _bad _idea to attempt to use the pink-haired girl as leverage against him.

It's nice to be safe. It's even nice to be protected and watched out for sometimes, as much as she hates to admit it.

* * *

Tsunade looks over the top of her file folder. She is currently using it to screen her expression from the ninja sitting before her. She waits, expecting an answer. 

"Are you sure this is the appropriate course of action?"

Count on Hyuuga Neji to respond to a question with a question. Tsunade blows through her nose in an exaggerated snort. She wonders if he does this just to provoke her legendary temper.

"Yes," she opens the file folder and displays it to him once again, "This is a high-level S-class mission. The assassination of the remaining Akatsuki member is of the highest priority. I shouldn't have to tell _you _just how dangerous they can be."

As much as he dislikes agreeing with her, Neji cannot deny her point. It was all he could do to fight Kisame, let alone get the lucky blow through that killed the shark-faced ninja. He grimaces and decides to try a different tactic.

"But this team has no medic-nin. It violates the ANBU Unit Construction Mandate you yourself created," he leans forward, folding his fingers into a neat steeple, "Remove Uchiha Sasuke and give us a proper medic-nin." It is interesting to the Hokage that he did not suggest the removal of Uzumaki Naruto from the team, or Inuzuka Kiba either. That says something to the once-blonde woman about his trust-level with the Last Uchiha.

"No," she says in a way that lets him know his suggestion can be stuffed right up his ass. She's the easiest read he's ever had with the Byakugan. All that anger and pride make her into more of a bulldozer than the rational and practical traits most kunoichi share. That's she's the strongest kunoichi in the world means nothing. Hell, Naruto can manipulate this woman to do anything he wants, which brings the blank-eyed man to wonder if he used his influence over her to snag the promotion the Hyuuga prodigy had so desperately wanted. If Uzumaki Naruto, of all people, could be promoted by _nepotism _didn't feel so _wrong_, Neji might have given the idea more than a cursory thought.

He does not shy away from her glare. His handsome, somewhat feminine face is set in an impassive mask. He's the only Konoha ninja since Uchiha Itachi that's been able to hide his emotions this well. It doesn't matter, because she knows this mission assignment makes him nervous, and when Neji's nervous, he gets cagey and starts to look for ways around or out.

"Uchiha Sasuke's involvement is critical for mission success." As Neji opens his mouth to object, the Hokage cuts him off, "All members of the team are necessary."

Anger boils inside of him, _why won't she listen to me? _The veins along the outside of his eyes pulse. The face of the Hokage shifts. He picks up the sudden resignation in her countenance instantly. It takes him only a few moments to realize why. The Byakugan reacted to his mood and now, without effort, he can read her inner thoughts.

"This mission isn't about the assassination," he says slowly, still staring at her with his frightening eyes, "is it?"

"Not entirely," she tells him. He can detect no falsehood.

A theory occurs to him, "This is about Uzumaki and Uchiha, isn't it?" Her eyes flick down, indicating a memory-trigger. She holds them there for just a second, the hard line of her mouth shifting just slightly at the left edge, denoting a distasteful conclusion to her line of thought. Then the golden-brown irises slide past him to fix to her right. They dilate, and he reads that as a reticence to force the issue. Evidently, he guesses right.

"They've been avoiding each other for almost a week now," she mumbles, "and I don't understand why. They used to be the best of friends… kind of… but now…" she trails off helplessly and locks eyes with him expectantly. She makes no attempt to hide her feelings from him, because it would do no good against those eyes.

_That sort of thing happens when one friend betrays that which the other holds as his highest dream, _Neji thinks, but does not say it. He dodges the unvoiced question, "I don't know," and forces back a wince. She couldn't have possibly missed that blatant a lie.

She does not speak, as though she did not care. Whatever is going through her head now is too deep for him to read properly and he comes up with a garbled series of half-thoughts and partial-beliefs. The Hokagewould be well within her rights toorder him to turn off his Byakugan, but she does not.

It is not his policy to get involved in other's affairs. However appropriate the word, he cannot help but know things about this situation. Neji is, if nothing else, objective. He understands perfectly why the Uchiha and Naruto do not get along anymore. The Hyuuga scion can _see_ it, because that is his gift. He cannot help _but_ know, but see, but pick up all the little clues and put them together into the proper pictures. It is just another facet of his curse.

He hates this shit. He hates always knowing what other people are thinking as much as he hates never being surprised. It is not the first time that he is envious of those who cannot _see_ as he does, for those who can still be surprised and shocked and startled. The world he lives in is much more staid, much blander. Now that he considers it, he wonders if he can be _disappointed_ anymore. Can he, if he already knows all of the outcomes and sees all the moves? The conclusion is laid bare to him, so how can he find disappointment in it if he knew it was coming? All the future does is fulfill his expectations.

And when he _is_ surprised or startled, that can only mean that the failing was his _own_ instead of some environmental or circumstantial factor. That's a hard pill to swallow. It's a hard and lonely road to walk for the Hyuuga prodigy.

Neji has known that this conflict between Sasuke and Naruto has been a long time coming.

_A man of average height throws away his dark cloak, crimson eyes narrowing at a pair of equally red orbs. They circle one another, neither giving quarter nor asking. It is not a fight, but merely a posturing contest. They are two males stepping through the age-old patterns of the challenge, an instinctual calling all men understand. For the dark-haired man, this is a gesture of respect. He never dances with his opponent before the fight. For the blonde, he is saying that he's not intimidated by the other man's reputation, that he's just another opponent, because he does this with everyone he fights. This is the section of the dance where they preen to intimidate the other._

_It does not work. They charge one another._

_Naruto is glowing like the sun, nine tails of pure chakra shimmering around him as he fights. The energy around him pulses and beats wildly, surrounding him in a cocoon of concentrated power that flickers like fire but isn't. It is of no use to his flame-manipulating enemy._

_Itachi smokes as he moves, hyper-fluid, yet disjointed and fragmented in a way that defies explanation. His long hair is trailing behind him, the image blurs at the edges even in Neji's Byakugan. He strikes low, but Naruto moves to counter the attack. Their limbs crash against each other and the backlash of mixing chakra bursts out in a crimson nova from the point of impact. The sound rings in his ears, otherworldly and haunting, as they twist about one another. _

_He can feel the killing intent, even more so than the heat radiating from the Uchiha. It washes over and consumes him, taking away the little part of him he thought capable of rational action. All he can do is stand and watch, the pressure of the battle weighing heavily in his mind, like a stone crushing him to the ground. His mind is filled with sand now and everything seems fuzzy at the corners. _

_They are watching each other again. Itachi is regarding Naruto with a look of respect, but has not allowed is ever-vigilant guard to slip. Naruto is displaying his prominent fangs and growling in anticipation, his face split in a feral grin. They are Tsukiyomi and Bishamon, one cloaked in darkness, the other wreathed in light. _

"So you'll go?" she asks, because she is a busy woman and she has no time for memories. He does not start, although his mind reels as it comes back to reality. He nods, knowing that he has no choice but to accept the mission. He has seen it along this far, so it is only right that he sees it through. It is his destiny to see things through to the end. This is why he has these eyes and this is what they require… no, _demand_.

She exhales softly, as though she were holding a breath. As though she didn't think he'd go through with it. That pleases him, because he knows that he's still cold and aloof enough to be unreadable.

He stands to leave without waiting for her approval. He is Hyuuga Neji and he is not _dismissed_ like any common shinobi. He is almost to the door (and freedom) when she asks the question he's been hoping to avoid.

"Do you know why?" her voice is soft and sad, like someone accustomed to being disappointed and expects it before anything else. It must be a side-effect of being Hokage; nothing ever goes the way you want it to.

He cannot control the stiffening of his back. Neji does not turn to look at her, only partially because he does not need to.

"Yes." He says nothing more. She does not attempt to stop him as he leaves her office. It would do no good; he wouldn't answer her question now.

Another memory catches his thoughts.

_They are beaten and bruised. All of the ANBU's wounds are sticking this time, and Neji does not know why. Generally he heals near-instantaneously. The missing-nin's body is hunched and tired and both are breathing heavily. If he had to guess, he'd say Itachi looked worse off. Naruto was wearing the invincible Uchiha down, slowly but surely. A war of attrition with stakes higher than the Hyuuga can imagine._

"_I once said there are three people who can handle the Mangekyou Sharingan…" he chuckles softly and a trail of blood leaks from the corner of his lips, "Show me if I am right…" the Sharingan snap open, locking with Naruto's demon-enhanced eyes. Neji knows that Naruto is suffering the invincible Tsukiyomi._

_Naruto does not react, but Itachi's jaw drops open and a shriek of unimaginable pain forces its way out. He grabs his ears and wrenches his eyes away. Then Itachi stumbles back a few steps, his arms pin wheeling for balance. It would have been funny, if not for the sheer, horrifying impossibility of it all. The dark-haired criminal is holding his knees now, trying to remain standing on unsteady legs. _

_Tsukiyomi reversed. Sky becomes ground. Moon becomes sun. Uchiha overcome._

_But Itachi laughs, loud and long, the most noise he has made in more than half his life. There is some secret mirth in him, some private joke he is enjoying. He is smirking the smirk of a man proved right. Naruto draws chakra into his hand and the Hyuuga prodigy realizes that the fight is over just as suddenly as it began._

"_He won't thank you," Itachi says. He has mastered his shaking legs and is erect again. It must have taken an unimaginable amount of willpower. Willpower that men like Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Itachi seem to have in spades._

_Naruto counters, "He's never thanked me for anything I've done for him. He always gets over it anyway."_

_The missing-nin raises a single disaffected grey eyebrow in response, as if to say 'Not this time.'_

_The younger man sighs, "You're probably right, but… that's the way it's gotta be…" _

_Itachi nods and the blonde squad leader moves in for the kill. "Goodbye, Uchiha." His whiskered face is impassive, the familiar combat mask Naruto has built up through the years and over all the dead bodies. It is so cold and uncharacteristic of the kitsune that it has always made Neji wonder which is the real Uzumaki Naruto… the cold, cruel ANBU or the loud, effervescent man?. It is a dichotomy that he does not understand, despite his cursed eyes. _

"_Goodbye, cousin," Itachi says just before the Rasengan tears him apart. He makes no move to avoid it, and dies with a smile on his lips._

He continues walking, paying no mind to the shinobi who step out of his way. _No,_ he thinks, _I know exactly why Naruto and Sasuke hate each other._

Hyuuga Neji hates Tuesdays.

* * *

Naruto is gone before the end of the hour, taking Neji, Sasuke, and Kiba with him. They are off on a quest of epic proportions to find the last remaining Akatsuki member. She is rumored to have been traveling through the area fleeing the Hunter-nin, and Konoha is willing to take the opportunity to dispatch four of its finest on such a risky mission. 

It is a mission not about the mission, but the team, the time they will spend together, and issues that are affecting their mission performance.

He does not get the opportunity to tell Sakura he is leaving. She has left the apartment by the time he manages to swing through. If he had but fifteen minutes more, he'd go check the Yamanaka flower shop or the Nara deer fields… or even the hospital infirmary or the tree swing by the academy where she takes her lunches. But sadly, he does not have the time to spare. He scribbles a hasty note on the back of a napkin (The package is unopened and covered in dust. Why does he need to use them again?) and sets it on the kitchen table. He launches himself through the window of the same room and out into the blue skies of Konoha to meet with his team.

The wind created by his sudden exit stirs the napkin and it flutters off of the table onto the floor, upside down.

* * *

Sakura is currently organizing the laundry in the Laundromat down the street. Naruto's apartment building, as comforting and familiar as it is, lacks any method of cleaning clothes. So every few days, Sakura gathers up a pack full of laundry and toddles off to do some washing. 

Lunch was good, she decides as she separates whites from colors. She had enjoyed a light snack of dango this afternoon at the teahouse down the road from Naruto's apartment. The establishment was not up to the usual standards she was accustomed to, but the tables were clean, the tea was hot, and the dango were mighty fine. The service had been impeccable, now that she thinks about it. Her waitress had always been on hand when Sakura ran out of hot water or when she needed even the smallest thing, ready to provide more without Sakura having to ask.

She pulls out a few lacy under-things from a pile of Naruto's clothes. She frowns, wondering how in the hell her favorite black satin bra got into his laundry pile. _He's not _that _fond of my lingerie, is he?_ Then she sighs, realizing that he makes a habit of tossing them over his head when he takes them off her body. She can't really blame him for missing the correct pile in the heat of the moment. She is, after all, the one distracting him. She should expect it really. Her clothes get into weird places sometimes when Naruto and Sakura just _go at it_ without any warningDecorating furniture, lamps, the floor, doorknobs, the television set… those are all pedestrian by comparison. She once found one of her socks in the freezer with its companion in the microwave and she couldn't _for the life of her_ remember how they got there. To be fair, she couldn't really remember when he took them off, or the next few hours. It gets that hot sometimes.

Maybe Naruto needed an ice cube? Then to heat something up?

That makes absolutely no sense, and she knows it. It's still kinky.

It doesn't really matter, because she calmly drops the offending undergarments into the basket containing her laundry.

Odd, now that she thinks about it. That waitress just about bent over backwards to make sure Sakura's dining experience was as pleasurable as possible. She can't quite put her finger on why though. And idea is tickling the back of her brain, but she does not nail it down and it slips through her thoughts like ashes between her fingers.

Now, it's time to separate the piles by materials. She arranges them with the greatest care, then proceeds to split her piles of clothes into smaller groups by washing instructions.

Sakura has always been thorough. If there is a task, she will see it through to completion. If there is a chore, she will see it done _right_. That's the way she is, always exacting in her work. Perhaps that's why she's a sennin, gifted in the study of seal-work and medical ninjutsu.

Seals are mostly theory, applying both physical and spiritual knowledge of an element or property or object and manipulating it with the proper application of chakra. It is very difficult and requires great intelligence and clarity. Sakura is one of the only ninja of her generation capable of doing it, so the responsibility of passing on the knowledge of sealing jutsu has fallen to her.

She's one of the few people who are capable of performing sealing jutsu without drawing diagrams and patterns first. It requires amazing chakra control to be able to seal freehand at her level. Only the Sannin and a short list of people qualify for the title of sennin. It's quite an honor to be called one, and it's nice that her near-perfect control has finally proved to be good for something.

However, that pride is dampened by the knowledge that most ninja do not need to resort to sealing techniques to be combat effective. Seal-work requires supreme concentration, is chakra intensive, and is slow in comparison with the standard twelve combat hand-seals used for normal jutsu. The effects of sealing are much more powerful, have greater range and scope, and generally a longer duration, but they are not compatible with the effects of other types of jutsu. It is a separate, if esoteric, branch of ninjutsu that is more often than not considered to be useless.

She can stop a raging forest fire when all the suiton jutsu in the world wouldn't help, but she couldn't possibly defend herself if they turn those suiton against her. That's a trade-off she doesn't like.

She gathers her clothes up, mixing her perfect piles as she always does, sacrificing perfect organization for perfect washing machine load size. She always does this and it causes some people to stare. Like those two men standing over by the entrance.

It is strange to her that after all her hard work, the only thing she excels at is the impractical. Never tactically effective, they told her when she asked them to teach her. She told them she didn't care. That was a lie, and Sakura's been doing that quite frequently now. Sakura _hates_ being ineffective. She hates that her taijutsu is only so-so, and her ninjutsu is pretty good but not stellar. The only thing she's good at, genjutsu, is the least effective of all the ANBU disciplines. Sure, with genjutsu you can make someone dance a jig or completely miss the parade of elephants trampling his house. You can make a man stand still long enough for you to slit his throat, or to walk off a cliff, but it is only the manipulation of perception and that is not inherently lethal. ANBU is the _assassination _squad, after all, and it is _far _more useful to kill outright with a single jutsu than manipulating the perceptions of the opponent to your advantage.

Hence, Chidori and Rasengan exist.

Genjutsu cannot kill outright. Believing otherwise is folly. A ninja cannot 'convince' a person they are dead by messing around with their mind. It doesn't work that way. Human bodies are hard-wired to work even if the conscious and rational mind has left the building. That's why humans don't stop breathing in a coma. Anything that _can _mess around with the subconscious is generally ninjutsu under the purview of the Yamanaka clan, and Jounin-level at that.

And most powerful (i.e. effective) offensive genjutsu require eye contact or line of sight. That's a dangerous position for a genjutsu specialist, because if you can see them, most likely they can see you. If you're staring them down, your jutsu had better work, because you'll get thrashed if it doesn't. Genjutsu creates illusory effects and doesn't require a great expenditure of chakra, comparatively, but enough control to manipulate all the different aspects of the illusion, which is why kunoichi are statistically more likely to be better at genjutsu than their male counterparts.

It still has a purpose, yes. Genjutsu is excellent for sneaking around, for going unnoticed, and for being subtle. With a good genjutsu, you can play on another person's feelings and have them dance like a marionette. But a genjutsu specialist is most often assigned a supporting role in the team, serving a purpose similar to the squad medic. They augment the stealth and subterfuge capabilities of the ANBU squad. They gather information by prying it directly from the minds of their captives. They confuse and disorient pursuers and targets with equal aplomb and they organize ambushes masked by cloaking jutsu. But fighting directly with genjutsu? It simply doesn't work.

That and any ninja worth his salt will suspect genjutsu the second he realizes something doesn't add up. They _always _suspect genjutsu. Suspicion is the first step to disbelief, while disbelief is the first step to throwing off the genjutsu. All they can do is buy you time against a determined opponent.

She can fight, yes, very well. Believing otherwise is a perilous folly. She's one of the old Konoha 'Rookie' Eleven, a series of promising children from all the advanced bloodlines and old families in Leaf village. But she is not capable of fighting on the level of, say, Rock Lee or Tenten, but she is better than the average Konoha Jounin.

She was a medic-nin for Hokage's sake, studying under a taijutsu specialist medic-sennin. She knows all the right places to hit.

The two men by the only entrance and exit are now arguing in hushed tones. Sakura can distinctly make out most of what they are saying, though the woman fidgeting next to her and refusing to make eye-contact cannot.

"Man, I'm telling you not to go over there," the one on the right says, a mildly attractive man around her age with ash-brown hair and unremarkable blue eyes. His companion, a handsome man who looks slightly younger than she, with a boyish smile that would make most women melt, shrugs his friend's warning hand off a broad shoulder.

"What? You marking your territory, Akebono?" he asks, his voice only half-joking.

"Huh?" the hesitant Akebono replies intelligently, then recovers, "Hell no, man. I just don't want you to get your dumb ass into trouble," his voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper, "She's a ninja, Ari."

Ari lets out a soft noise of indignation; "Is that all?" his grin is cutely lopsided as he reminds his friend that wild women are more fun in bed. "And she looks good enough to eat." He wets his lips in anticipation.

Sakura's back straightens marginally. She has gotten a good handle on what these two are arguing about, but she decides it's a better idea to ignore them and avoid giving Ari any false signs of interest. So she continues to put her laundry into washers and feed coins into machines.

By the time she measures out the proper amount of bleach-detergent for her whites, the whispered argument has reached a fevered pitch.

The handsome womanizer Ari folds his arms and gives his friend a calm glare, "I don't care. That's a vixen right there I plan to get acquainted with."

Sakura can't help but chuckle under her breath at that one. _As if_, she thinks, sparing him a glance out of the corner of her eye. Sure, he's handsome enough, but she can't help but think he'd never be able to satisfy her needs. He looks like he lacks the endurance to go the distance, and he certainly doesn't know her body well enough.

This leaves Sakura wondering when her sexual standards became so high.

The friend chokes back a disbelieving snort, "You are the biggest idiot ever! Can't you see she's doing laundry for her boyfriend, too?"

"Oh yeah?" Ari asked, trying hard to sneer but unable to keep the interest from his face, listening to his friend for the first time since the argument began. This could pose a problem, if a small, easily-overcome one, to his master plan to bed the woman with pink hair. But then, it's not like he hasn't seduced them away from boyfriends before.

"She's the Fox's woman, dipshit," the friend hissed through clenched teeth.

Silence. Sakura freezes in a way that is none-to-subtle, and she knows that Akebono has noticed her eavesdropping by now.

"Oh." Ari sighs and rolls his eyes. He looks at her and she demurely looks away. There is a tense moment as he takes a step towards her, then decides better of it.

"Vixen indeed," he says to Akebono as he calmly walks out of the Laundromat, his friend trailing at his heels.

The woman next to Sakura has found something interesting about the far wall, but beads of sweat dot on her forehead. Sakura is too incensed to notice her nervous behavior. She may not have the legendary temper of her mentor, but she is both beautiful and deadly in her anger. Sakura is a woman not to be trifled with when riled.

Eventually, when her laundry is dry and cooling in the machines, she will forget to fold it. All she can think is _How dare he?_ But she does not understand why she's angry.

* * *

Sakura finishes putting away the laundry by tea time, but Naruto has not returned from the ANBU headquarters, so she entertains herself by watching some television in between hand-washing the dishes. Naruto's apartment doesn't have a dishwasher, which she laments to her pruned hands and dish-soap hands. It doesn't have space for a dishwasher. All the necessities for cooking take up every possible inch of space in his kitchen. It is the apartment of a man who was once a boy, but has now grown. It is much like the apartment of an old man. Everything is old and has a sense of history to it. This is Naruto's decade-and-a-half-old couch. This is Naruto's microwave, given to him on his sixteenth birthday by an incredibly bubbly Rock Lee, who later confided in them both that he was incapable of cooking anything that didn't require a microwave. 

And, like an old man, Naruto is too stubborn to upgrade or replace anything that he owns. Everything has special meaning to him, like the recliner that has been broken for years but he won't replace it because Iruka-sensei gave it to him for Christmas. He remembers how little money Iruka had, and how much of it was spent on him and his precious ramen. Sakura believes that Naruto is secretly giving his ex-sensei a sizable portion of his income. As part of his salary, maybe a seniority bonus or something of the like so Iruka doesn't get suspicious and give the money back, because the man would never accept charity. He always gave of himself to others, and is not comfortable with the reverse.

For Hokage's sake, it's obvious he doesn't spend it on his apartment.

It is the same television that he owned as a child and the red in the picture is beginning to go a little. He won't let it go because he doesn't remember receiving it. It's been there just as long as he has and all the people who could tell him where it came from are dead. His favorite theory is that it was given to him by the Sandaime back when it was new, but it's just an idle fantasy he knows. For all he knows, this television could have belonged to his unknown mother, and that's enough incentive for him to never let go of it.

She stops. Her eyes sweep over the clutter that chokes the sitting room, and she decides that Naruto's apartment could use a woman's touch.

Then, with an incredible display of obliviousness, she turns into the kitchen to get started on an early dinner.

* * *

She steps on something as she's grilling squid on Naruto's mini-hibachi. It is a napkin. For a second, her heart jumps and a smile is brought to her face. Naruto is using napkins! Ha ha! Her womanly influence is helping him to find the one and true path, the path of cleanliness is godliness espoused by the church of Haruno. 

Without another thought, she crumples up the napkin and throws it away, hitting the garbage can from across the kitchen with pinpoint accuracy because she's a ninja, damn it.

* * *

It is late when Sakura turns in for the evening. She sits on the couch expectantly until the sun sets around nine in the evening. It is summer in Konoha and the sun is out well on into the evening. With a half-heart, she flips on the television, but the red goes out again and she considers hitting it, but remembers that she can break rocks with her fists and that Naruto loves this TV and that it's past prime-time anyway and nothing good is on. 

So she turns in, earlier than she'd like, but still late enough that she won't sleep too much.

But she does not sleep. She sits on the bed, under the covers, reading a book of Naruto's. It's a copy of Icha Icha Paradise, given as a present from and signed by the author. The book's cover is red and in very good condition for a copy this old. Naruto never reads it. He never _needs_ to read it. She finds the poetry and dialogue well-written, but the sex is staid and rather unremarkable. She's done everything in this book, except for wearing the generic assortment of skimpy costumes, but Sakura doesn't really think Naruto needs more encouragement. Ignoring the fact that this woman bears an eerie similarity to Tsunade, there really isn't much in there that pertains to her life.

That French Maid outfit would just exacerbate the _lack_ of… she doesn't like to think about it, anyway.

There is a definite tingle in her body, much like an electric current and she keeps hoping that Naruto will burst through the door at any moment so they can get down to getting it on. Sakura is impatient, her eyes flicking from the book in her hands to the door and back again. It would be just fine with her if he didn't say _anything_ when he came in, just put his hands on her and went to work with that sappy grin on his face.

_Come in_, she wills him to appear_, Come in right now_, but nothing happens.

At first she begins to wonder where he is. The roseate woman makes an excuse for him. He hasn't been spending all that much time at ANBU headquarters this past week, so work must have caught up to him tonight. This satisfies her for about thirty pages of the manga.

She looks at his clock. It proudly displays the time of 11:30, glowing in the self-righteous way of clocks that screams 'What? You were stupid enough to think it was some _other_ time?' About now, she begins to worry in the way that all women worry. Silently.

Time passes slowly without him there. She gets herself a drink of water and sits on the corner of the bed, facing the doorway to the hall.

She wonders if something has come up. No, she _knows_ something has come up. Something bad, because Naruto would never leave without telling her if he could avoid it and whatever it was, it must have blindsided him.

It couldn't have been anything too important, because the citizenry seemed to be acting normal… except for those two guys. Didn't hit on her because she was Naruto's woman? It never stopped men from trying to pick her up when she was officially with Sasuke, so why should this only mildly-official liaison with Naruto put them off? (Though, it's not like she enjoys being hit on, but if you stand on your head and squint at it, she does find it flattering when men _try_. It's kind of a compliment. _Kind of_.)

And that woman, in line at the Laundromat, who took one look at her and let her go first, then proceeded to take the washers farthest away from Sakura. And the mother who told her child not to stare at Sakura's hair, despite his repeated murmurings of how pretty the kunoichi was. And the waitress at the restaurant this afternoon, who was so intent on serving her that she would have jumped on one leg and barked like a dog had Sakura asked.

The pieces were slowly coalescing in her mind… something was funny about it. And not just today, but all this last week, people were acting strangely around her. _Huh, this all started about the time I came to back to Naruto's place. _

It clicks.

Burning Hokage Shit. People are treating her differently _because _she's with Naruto now, and they're _terrified_ of him. So they're deathly afraid of offending _her_, because her displeasure will be reported right back to him. Any fool can see the way he dotes on her, so as long as she's happy, Naruto doesn't have to get angry with them.

Were she less of an honorablewoman at heart, Sakura might have enjoyed this newfound power of approval. But instead, she shakes her head to clear away these disturbing thoughts and focuses her attention on her hands.

She flushes, realizing that she's still reading this stupid book. On the last page, the main character,a caricature of Jiraiya himself, states boldly 'There is nothing more dangerous than a woman who does not know what she wants, but will do anything to get it.'

She doesn't understand.

The kunoichi flushes even deeper when she realizes that she's laying along the bed on her side, propping her head up with one arm and reading with the other. Her forearm is wedged underneath her breasts, making them far more noticeable, and her legs are uncrossed. She's canted oddly on the bed so as to be most visible from the door. She can easily flick her eyes up from the pages of Icha Icha Paradise and whisper some innuendo-laden words.

'I found this book of yours and it aroused my curiosity. Can two people really fit together like _this_?' she hears herself purring.

She's subconsciously arranged herself to for maximum allure and she can't remember changing into her black lace undergarments. Like some sort of cheap whore or brazen slut, waiting to service on command.

With a sharp flick of the wrist, Sakura sends the offensive material flying into the corner of the room. She growls angrily, imagining the horrible tortures she'll enact on the pervert's hide when she next sees that damn sennin. How dare his dirty books make her into a subconscious pervert? She is so indignant, she forgets about Naruto's absence for a while.

* * *

Tsunade looks at the clock in the hall of the Hokage's quarters. It reads midnight. 

The clock is old, an antique grandfather clock with the pulleys and weights. It was owned, conveniently enough, by her grandfather, the First Hokage. It's made out of a wood she doesn't recognize and she distinctly remembers her grandfather telling her that he brought it with him to Konoha when he created the village.

Its face is stylized to represent the two halves of a day, day and night. Right now, the world is shrouded in darkness and all the diminutive figures scribed into the metal are laying down in either supplication or sleep. Her grandfather liked to look at the time and tell her that life is a cycle. It had its light and dark parts, and whenever she was afraid or worried, life seemed dismal, and hope was almost at an end, she could always count on the world getting better. "Nothing remains dark forever," he told her, with a kind smile on his face, "just as the night brightens at dawn, so to do our fortunes wax."

She had always thought this was optimistic bullshit. In fact, she had spent almost twenty-five years running away from this village, this place, this clock, because after Dan and Nawaki died, she forsook everything her grandfather had taught her, believing he was just a senile old fool.

It had never crossed her mind that there was another half to the saying. "Nothing gold can last, just as the day gives way to night at dusk, so to do our fortunes wane." She just never heard it, because her grandfather wanted her to remain optimistic in her youth. Sad how that failed, now that she thinks about it.

Life is fleeting. She knows this. Tsunade can feel the years creeping up on her, can feel the toll decades of hard-living as a kunoichi have taken on her body. She even knows how much of this damage was due to her regenerative jutsu. The more things change and the older she gets, the more things seem the same to her.

She can see this generation's Ino-Shika-Chou trio, but it's down one member already and two out of three just doesn't cut it.

She can see herself so clearly in that stupid Haruno girl, all brains and talent and no idea how to really use it. The Godaime Hokage fancies that she was never that directionless in her youth, though Tsunade had never been dumb enough to fall in love with her teammates. Fool around with them, yes, but love, no. Well… really 'in love' with them. Jiraiya still gives her the speculative eye every now and then, but that's understandable. He doesn't know any better.

Idiocy is such a difficult disease to overcome, Tsunade reflects.

She sees her brother, her lover, Jiraiya, that stupid Obito, prodigy of the Uchiha clan, and, last but not least, the Yondaime Hokage in Uzumaki Naruto. She sees a touch of everyone he's ever fought beside and everyone he's ever fought against in him. Orochimaru mixed with Genma, Kisame combined with Kurenai; he's a brilliant mimic, better than any Uchiha, because he doesn't take moves or jutsu, but the idea and purpose behind it and makes it his own.

She sees how much being the Commander of the ANBU takes out of him, how thin a line he really walks. Despite herself, she's not sure which man Naruto represents will dominate, which she wants to win out over the others. Konoha could use another Yondaime, which goes without saying, and boys frequently grow up to become their fathers. But Jiraiya… another friend, another comrade for her? She has so few friends left now… Obito, a hero in his own life-time, and the last, decent Uchiha.

She sees Uchiha Sasuke as the new Orochimaru. All wound up inside and broken apart, with no place left for him to sink his fangs and spit his poison. He's backed up on venom and it's killing him. His brother's dead, but not by his hands and he doesn't know what to _do _with his life anymore, because he hasn't lived in so long he's forgotten. And that stupid girl tries to teach him, but he's an Uchiha. They don't learn lessons from other people, they encapsulate them into the most salient points and then absorb them through their eyes, like a jutsu or seal. They are… were… both so serpentine, that she's not at all surprised. She _is_ surprised that no one saw this coming before it happened.

Kakashi was an idiot.

But it's not right to think ill of the dead, so her thoughts progress onward. The dead still hold too much sway over her life for her to be wallowing in memories of them now. She's too important to be lost in the past.

She sees Hyuuga Neji, in all his infuriating glory. She knows his story _and_ his reasons. He's far more exposed to her than he realizes and she's cleverer than he imagines. Everyone knows about his incredible talent, his bloodline-limit, his cold, aloof personality. Oh, Tsunade knows what he would have become, and she knows that Konoha would not survive the loss of its other great clan. The parallels between the two genius-prodigies are too similar for it to have ended any other way. Thankfully, the Hyuuga at least have minimal control over his actions, the foot-break keeping him from achieving that horrible potential.

How silly and ineffective a simple little forehead seal seems when compare to incredible genius, scathing hatred, and ruthless determination.

_He'd have found a way_. They always do.

_No_, Tsunade thinks. _That's not right_. _Naruto_ is and has always been the foot-break on Neji's destructive impulses. Just simply showing him another way to live, free of regret and hatred, saved the young genius' future. He doesn't have to be like Itachi now, he's free.

She sees Kiba, silly, loud, and happy as hell. In him, she can see Jiraiya, very much Jiraiya, more so than even in Naruto. Truth be told, she's suggested the older man train him on several occasions. They both share a loud, enthusiastic love of life and a burning determination to be acknowledged, much like Naruto, but to a lesser degree. Jiraiya wasn't special, that much is for sure. Kiba boasts talent and skill and purports to be the best to anyone who will listen, but the Hokage can see how his eyes light up whenever he gets a mission with Naruto or Neji or Sasuke. He's just happy to be included, happy to test himself against the bars they set. Happy to always find himself up to snuff.

To be honest, Konoha needs another set of heroes right now. Another brilliant Orochimaru except without the insane experiments on fellow ninja. Another compassionate Tsunade, without the soul-shattering loss of family. Another unstoppable Itachi, without the Bloodline-Death incident. Another incredible Yondaime, except without the need for self-sacrifice. Another hoary Jiraiya, wise and powerful, a genius of recognizing potential, without…

Without what? The womanizing and alcoholism? She chuckles bitterly, almost ashamed that Jiraiya turned out to be the best of them, after all this time.

Heroes that don't ditch their duties and run away when the going gets tough. Heroes that stick with Konoha through thick and thin. Heroes that don't get old, run away and drink themselves unconscious to forget the past. Heroes that don't go insane or break apart. Heroes that don't die. That would be nice, if heroes didn't die… and not that cop-out 'Never Truly Die' line, but honest-to-god meeting all comers and facing all odds and coming out on top, dying when they're old and wise and have found suitable replacements as their legacies.

Heroes that are… _heroes_. Heroes that _stay _heroes.

She swirls the clear liquid in her ceramic dish daintily, belying that the strength to crush a boulder is in her hands. It is amazing how alcohol and midnight-walks combine for instant reflection.

Tsunade, granddaughter of the Shodaime Hokage, is sixty-one years of age. She wonders when she became responsible, when she started drinking nightcaps to get to sleep, and when she started acting like an old man. Probably when she accepted the position of Hokage, a man's game, statistically-speaking.

_A beautiful, young lady like myself… _the blonde woman gives it up about there. Self-deception only gets her so far these days.

She is old, though she takes great pains not to look it. Soon, the Godaime Hokage will have to hand over the title to the Rokudaime Hokage. The Sandaime did that with the Yondaime, but as fate would have it, he was called back into action less than a decade later. Hell, she took over this damn job at a later age than he gave it up.

The clock finishes chiming the hour, and she downs the warm sake in one swallow, along with all her pride.

All she wants anymore is to see her ninja come home safe. The Godaime Hokage is tired of sending good people to their deaths. She's tired of making hard decisions. She's tired of making sacrifices. She's tired of sorrow. It is funny to her that she tried to grow up so fast, to be so good, and now all she tries to do is stay young, stay active, stay alive.

_Come home safe, Naruto, Sasuke, Neji, Kiba… Konoha needs you._

* * *

It is late. How late, Sakura does not know. She has turned off the light and gotten under the covers, throwing something over the clock so she cannot see its luminosity. Naruto has still not returned. Though they haven't picked habitual sides of the bed, because Naruto ends up being on the bottom more often than not and it's really too small a bed for them to sleep adjacent, she's keeps rolling over and expecting to find him. 

The bed is very, very cold without Naruto to act as her space-heater. She is lonely, though she is not distraught. In all the years she has known Naruto, he has never, ever been in danger of dying from his wounds. She's familiar with his remarkable restorative capabilities. She's not worried that he's hurt, lying in a god-forsaken ditch somewhere, bleeding to death, like other women would be at this time of night if they didn't know where their… er, whatever he was to her… was.

It's like he should be here at any moment, but something is holding him away. She caresses the pillow next to her head, hoping that Naruto will appear soon, because she's lonely and if there's one thing Sakura has _never_ been able to handle, it's being on her own.

It strikes her how much like sleeping next to Sasuke this is. The bed is cold and unfriendly and everything seems so far away that she just can't reach it. It doesn't matter if his body is there or not, because his mind is a thousand miles away and it doesn't really ever focus on her anyway. She's alone and it's dark.

Naruto's room is unfamiliar, but then, she's never been in it without his warm and comforting presence in the bed with her.

Sakura just wants him to come back so that she won't have to be alone anymore.

She falls asleep curled in a ball under the covers, clutching his pillow to her chest.

* * *

Author's Notes: 

I would like to start by saying that I didn't rip off the idea of the vendor scene from Flashfyre5's 'Chuunin.' I thought up that idea a few months ago (though I don't use a beta, so no one can corroborate my story) and I've never even conversed with Flashfyre5. Actually, when I read the first chapter, I said something to the effect of 'Aw man, I hope no one thinks I stole this from Chuunin,' because _everybody's _going to read Chuunin, and only the people really paying attention are going to read what I write. I'd rather not lose the respect of my target audience (though I haven't decided if there _is_ a target audience or I'm just typing to see myself talk.) Okay we'll settle this right now. **Author's Edict:** _If you're reading this, consider yourself part of the target audience. Probably…_ There, good enough.

In other news, I am well aware that a better comparison would be Amaterasu to Tsukiyomi, yes, but Amaterasu is female and that doesn't fit Naruto (despite the female voice-actor.) And I hardly think that Itachi and Naruto are night and day to one another.

Dr. Brief's Cat is on my favorite's list because of 'The Uchiha Restoration,' which is a brilliant piece about Sasuke and Sakura getting a loveless marriage. (It doesn't mean I liked it, oh no, because I'd like to see Sakura do something that makes her happy directly instead of marrying Sasuke because she feels needed, but it was _excellent_. Aw hell, Dr. Brief's Cat is excellent and you should read everything she has written. I'd command you to do it now, but I have more to say. Go Lee, Go!)

I was originally going to rant about Sasuke. I wrote out a cohesive argument that spanned two pages, but then I talked to GC and gave her the whole thing in two piecemeal barrels (poor thing, she deserves some sympathy for that.) I'll just summarize it here for you:

GenoCalamari: Sasuke Rat-Fink  
Girl-chama: Well… I don't—  
GenoCalamari: _interrupts calmly,_ Let me clarify: Sasuke **EVIL**RAT-FINK!  
Girl-chama: _sighs, wondering why she's even trying, _Yeah... you're right.

Okay, that's a gross oversimplification, but it's an almost _entirely_ accurate summary. (In my defense, the equation _is _balanced.) In the end, I decided that I didn't want to expose my left flank to the legions of Sasuke-lovers out there who simply don't want to hear what I have to say. Their cohesive salvo might catch me broadside and that would be the end of my career as a fanfiction writer. (And going down in flames is like burning to death, which is probably the most awful way to die.) I'll have to bide my time and strike when the time is optimal. Besides, I think in ranting about it to someone who actually was interested in my opinion (she had plenty of grains of salt on her though,) I managed to bleed off some of my incredible loathing for Sasuke. I can almost keep a straight face when I read the manga now! (Though I'd rather be damned then let her make me like the son-of-a-bitch.)

Oh, and someone is bound to notice that I have the audacity to portray Itachi as something other than an emotionless killing-machine (which denotes emotions that he does not express and the idea that sometimes, you have to do things you don't agree with or want to) and I don't extend that same courtesy to Sasuke. This is called a 'double standard' and that's just fine by me that it's not fair and I am _well _aware of it. For me, it stems from the fact Kishimoto hasn't painted Itachi into a corner plot-wise… though this may be because we haven't gotten into his head yet. Sasuke's caught in this really horrendous series of events and it's all I can do to keep him from being a cackling psycho-maniac. Sasuke's becoming _evil_ and if you don't see it, pay closer attention. Evil is pervasive and subtle just as often as it is dangerous and overt. Orochimaru is evil and he revels in it. Itachi is evil, and no matter how nobly I portray him, this _cannot_ be forgotten.

Sasuke isn't the smirking, condescending golden-boy from the first… thirty or so episodes of the anime anymore. He isn't 'the kid everyone loved to hate but secretly liked anyway' anymore.

Thought Experiment #1: Mangekyou Sharingan is an old technique, handed down through the generations of Uchiha until a few of their greatest shinobi could manifest it. The question is this: If there were really another way of getting the Mangekyou Sharingan (aside from killing that which you cherish most) is it not a rational assumption to think that the _Legendary Uchiha Clan_ would have figured it out by now? Even if they simply reverse-engineered it from someone who already has it?

Hence: The M. Sharingan can only be garnered by killing off your best friend (blood-sacrifice, loss-of-humanity, whatever) and there _is no other way to do it_. QED

For those of you who are still reading carefully enough to notice the clues, I'd like to say this: Hell yeah! I _did_ just do what you think I did. If you want justification for it, give me a while and I'll have the third part of this unholy triumvirate cranked out.

Man, Triumvirate… I love that word.

In other and final news, Continuity Error is not dead. I am currently 'negotiating' with an agent to bring in some 'talent' to suppliment my own.If this statement confuses you, then good. My job here is finished.

So I'll get off my soap-box. Geno Calamari out.

_I COMPELL you to read Dr. Brief's Cat! Geno DEMANDS it! NOW, MORTALS, NOW!_


	2. Intermission A

Update: Look, I'm sorry about the lack of scene break lines. Blame it on FanFiction. In my word document, the tapestry of my mind from which my half-coherent sermons originate, there are these nice little lines that indicate where and when I change scenes. However, the quickedit function does not pick up on these, so I am forced to manually include them. This did not work, as you may or may not have noticed. So I'm trying again.

"_The first level of the Sharingan is called the 'discerning eye.' It provides the Uchiha with the ability to see the truth of the world."  
__- Eyes of an Uchiha, Memoirs of Uzumaki Naruto_

Intermission A: Elaboration  
_ By Geno Calamari_

He moved with the casual stride of a warrior, loosly self-aware and yet coiled tightly enough to strike at the slightest provocation. The crowds parted before him, moving aside for the office as much as the heroic man under the robe of office.

Despite his seemingly lazy smile and calm demeanor, the Yondaime Hokage was uncomfortable. He hated formal affairs, like the presentation of a Royal Clan heir. It was boring and staid and always took far longer than he believed they should. How many of these had he been to in his short years as Hokage? Three now? Aburame, Taira, and now this one. The Inuzuka clan had been blessed with a girl almost a month ago, so he'd avoid that one for just a little longer.

But he'd have to suffer through this one and it might take some doing to keep smiling throughout this entire ceremony. How much longer would this be? With the speed only the Yellow Flash could achieve, he checked his watch.

Had it only been ten minutes since the elders had begun the speech about loyalty to the clan and the village and responsibility? He squeezed his eyes in a vain attempt to hold back the sudden dizziness that rushed from his skull down his spine. It was a strangely pleasant tingling sensation, that feeling when you were on the border of passing out from boredom.

Keeping himself upright on willpower alone, the blonde man focused all of his attention on the emaciated man speaking on the virtues of self-sacrifice and honor.

"... these are the things that we, as Uchiha, strive to uphold in the village. We are pillars of society, guardians of order and peace. This is the responsibility that will one day be passed on to our youngest generation. Among the most sacred of our burdens is the proper indoctrination of the youth of today..."

He lost track again about there. It was all far too long-winded to be of any use, and Yondaime truly doubted that this small boy was absorbing any of this asinine rhetoric. But the boy stood all the same, straight-backed with an undeniable air of authority for one so young.

Three years old, and the whole weight of the future is on his head. It was sad, really. This boy would never be a child, never play with others his own age, never live and grow as a person should. The way of the ninja was to be his only path in life. The Yellow Flash bit his lip to hold back the bile rising in his throat. No child, no matter how talented or gifted or privileged should be forced to live the life of a killer from his earliest memories. Some might say this was the price of being gifted with one of the most awesome bloodline limits known to shinobi kind, but he disagreed. A child was a child, and especially an Uchiha child, who was nourished with steel and fire instead of love and attention.

It made him so angry that he had to step on Hyuuga Hiashi's foot to get his mind off the injustice of it all. Hiashi didn't react, but Hizashi quirked that funny little smile they shared. The barest flick of the elder's head indicated the beginning of one of their silent arguments. Never had the Hokage known two closer people than the Hyuuga twins.

Mutual assent reached, they chose the dignified route of ignoring the idiotic Hokage.

That made it a challenge.

Five seconds later, although it felt much longer in ninja-time, the Sandaime Hokage had hit the Yellow Flash over the head with his pipe. Mumbling something about 'Setting a good example' and 'You'll catch hell for this,' the elderly man settled back down into his chair behind them and folded his arms. Hyuuga Hiashi grimaced around his bruised ribs while Hyuuga Hizashi allowed himself a rare self-satisfied smile. _All's well that ends well, eh Hizashi?_

Uchiha Akatori was barely containing his fury. A man who shared more in common with a faceless marble statue than the fire he so professed affinity. But even his stoic nature was crumbling at the hellfire boiling up in him. With a look that plainly said 'Ruin this for my son and I'll kill you,' Akatori glared down the Yellow Flash. It was unnerving, for when Yondaime got into a staring match with someone, he frequently found terror and apprehension in his opponent's visage. Not so with the Uchiha.

But then again, Uchiha Akatori had never been intimidated by the blonde. Especially not in the academy days when Akatori could still keep up, or genin days, when they had been in direct competiton.

Nope. Akatori was no fun at all.

Sighing inaudibly, though every Uchiha in the room could hear it, the most powerful man in Konoha focused his attention on the ceremony once again and tried to figure out how far along they had gotten in the proceedings.

"... this is the blessing of childhood, the innocence of spirit and the simplicity of vision..."

_Yeah, the same innocence you'll beruthlessly expunging from this boy..._

"... that will one day grow to the man that will lead and shape our great clan for the next generation."

_Sounds like he's finally wrapping up_, Yondaime thought, but then realized that after this gathering, there was a reception. He couldn't afford to miss that. With only a few years under his belt as Hokage, he was constantly fighting to maintain his position in the public eye. Without getting out of the office and being seen as a person and more than just a goofy hat, his approval would drop among the shinobi and his people would lose faith in his leadership ability. This ceremony, like the many others in his busy schedule, provided a critical opportunity to get to know the people depending on his guidance and vision as a leader.

_Never underestimate the power of the meet-and-greet_.

"I give you Itachi, heir to the Clan Uchiha!" And with that, the young boy turned. Calmly turning a face that might have been cute had he smiled toward the crowd, the boy gazed out, his eyes barely higher than the heads of those assembled before him.

"I accept this responsibility," he said softly, without trace of the soft-pallette lisp that children who speak too early develop. For a child of only three, he stood squarely, his face even and his eyes locked straight ahead, a stance drilled into him from hours of practice. Had he not been less than four feet tall, he would have looked commanding, regal even. But now he looked only defiant, like a petulant child being scolded for disobedience.

It was the lack of fire in his eyes that worried Yondaime. He was brainwashed, a perfect servant of the Clan, molded in an image of their design without his own ability for independent reasoning or thought. Had they broken this child's wings before he even learned to fly?

Disgusted, the Yondaime Hokage forgot to applaud. It was only when Chomaru nudged him hard (and for Chomaru, that's _hard_) that he remembered himself and remembered his station. Putting two hands together, the sound he created was off-beat with the rest of the applause and a bit quieter than the rest, but the sound he created was washed away in the tide.

_

* * *

Those keen blue eyes darted over the Uchiha Head's shoulder, examining something that didn't look away quite as quickly as everyone else did._

"Who is that lovely creature?" the Yondaime Hokage asked, nodding to a young woman half-hiding behind the elder's table, acting as a serving girl for the aged Uchiha. Suddenly, the Hokage hoped he kept the wonder from his voice… not that an Uchiha would be fooled by such a base omission.

She was indeed a beautiful lady. Her hair was a dark as night itself and had it been undone the Yellow Flash would have bet it fell to her waist. As it was, it was done up in a complicated braid held by two large wooden needles. Her cosmetics were properly applied, lightly rouging her perfect complexion. Full lips pouted almost playfully at him, but it was gone in an instant and the blonde was sure he imagined it. Her onyx eyes met his for just one moment and he felt something electric pass between them.

Akatori glanced over his shoulder in the direction of his old rival's nod. He froze, staring wide-eyed for a second before turning back to his Hokage faster than he probably intended. Of course he recognized the woman, how could he not?

"That," he said with an appreciable amount of menace in his voice, "is my sister."

Well that tears it,_ the Yondaime Hokage decided,_ I have to meet her now.

Well that tears it, I have to meet her now. 

_He tried to repress the grin, he really did, but it was inevitable. That shit-eating grin Uchiha Akatori knew to fear and hate blossomed on the face of his most bitter rival. This provoked the standard reaction, a glare of deathly proportions that only Konoha's most royal clan could pull off. Had he been any normal man, that glare would have blasted him out of his ninja sandals. _

_Sadly, the Yondaime Hokage had never been a normal man. Lacking in taste and sense, he had always been deadly, to himself as much as his enemies._

"_You want to introduce me?" he asked, fully ignoring his seething ex-worst-enemy and the blanch that statement caused. He finds it strange that he has never met his rival and worst political enemy's only sister. Thinking quickly, Yondaime can't remember ever being told of her existence in the first place._

"_No," Akatori deadpans. The Yellow Flash takes a moment to pout. _

"_You're no fun at all," the Uchiha clan head begins to tune him out, because even though the blonde man is the most powerful and important lord in all of Konohagakure, he isn't stupid and should known better than to go getting himself mixed up with the Uchiha. _How dare he think he can just waltz into our precious bloodline! The elder-council has already arranged a good marriage for her and that's that.

"_See, now you're just ignoring me," the Yellow Flash gestures, "I insulted your mother and you didn't even bat an eye." He grasped the bridge of his nose in one of his favorite overdramatic gestures, blowing a hard sigh and closing those forceful blue eyes. _

"_Here," the Hokage forces a kunai into the tightly clenched fist of his Uchiha companion, "…keep this for me."_

_Akatori doesn't have to look at the kunai to recognize what it is. It's one of those special, three-tined kunai with the tag printed along the spine of the knife. The tag allows the Yellow Flash to teleport instantly to the kunai with the use of shunshin no jutsu. Although why _he's_ holding one was still a…_

"_I might have to make a _flashy_ exit," the Yellow Flash grins wolfishly, enjoying his cleverness immensely, "You know, for the ladies…" and nods shortly in the direction of Akatori's sister._

_Suddenly, the Uchiha clan head remembers that this man has been trained by Jiraiya, the Sannin and legendary pervert. This thought made him very, very worried._

"_Bye now," Konoha's own blonde idiot waves and gives a small chuckle, content in the purple-and-white blotchy face of an Uchiha split between horror and anger. It's not every day that Yondaime can have this much fun at a party. He walked away, taking a brisk stride that will lead in him a descending spiral around the room to his target. No need to be too obvious about it, now._

_As soon as the blonde man broke away, Akatori's fist clenches tightly around the kunai. _Only one thing to do now. _Purposefully, he strides to the bathroom and deposits the Yondaime Hokage's special knife into the toilet. _

There. Flash that. _The Uchiha clan head smirked._

* * *

As long as he can remember, Uchiha Itachi has hated the rain.

He is a man that hates a significant number of things in this life, but rain is close to the top. It gets in your eyes, mats down your hair, ruins visibility, and shortens the distance you can throw with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Rain leaves him feeling quenched, putting out the burning fire inside, making him want to get whatever it is he has left to complete done and get home, and reducing him to a smoldering ember. Admittedly, a smoldering ember wrapped in highly volatile explosives, but an ember none-the-less.

It washes off the blood, when all he wants is for everyone to see.

"This! This is what I am!" he wants to tell them, "And I like it!" but he is too stoic by nature to allow such an outburst. Nor would they be too keen on hearing his declaration… though they would probably find him a necessary abomination and do nothing when their darkest suspicions were confirmed.

He rather liked that word… 'Abomination.' It rolled off the tongue, so strong, so offensive. So accurate.

Thirty-six hours ago, he not-so-subtly threatened his father.

"I guess I'll drop tomorrow's mission," he had said it with all earnestness and truly meant it. His father had been shocked, mortified even. "I'm going to Sasuke's entrance ceremony into the ninja academy." It was a brilliant ploy to force his father into attending the ceremony. If a family member did not pledge for a potential academy student, they were not accepted. In his father's obsession with his eldest son's performance, he had neglected his youngest.

Itachi had always found filial piety trite at best and obsequious at worst. Yet another addition to the long list of intolerable things in his life. Perhaps he would create a physical list one day, as a testament to his mentality.

So his father had gone to the entrance ceremony and Itachi had gone to his mission. It was a simple retrieval mission. Get in, get the technique scroll, leave another village's calling card, get out.

Easy. He'd done it a hundred times before.

He sat, back against a wall, rain pouring down on his head. Any other man might have wondered where it all went wrong. Itachi wasn't sure it had even started _right_. The complicated part was getting through the innumerable traps and dozens of enemy jounin guarding this sacred scroll. No extraction, no clear escape routes, no reliable intelligence.

Simple.

Getting inside the Hidden Village of Mist was never an easy proposition, even when they went so far as to open the front gate and roll out the welcome mat. Even this dreary place hosted the Chuunin Exam, although not with the same frequency as Hidden Leaf and Itachi had never taken it here. Hadn't taken it more than once anyway…

So half of his four-man team didn't enter the Village proper. Two of his ANBU stayed outside, slaying the chuunin on guard duty, damaging the massive curtain wall at the boundary with specially designed explosive tags and drawing a significant portion of the Mist-nin to the walls in preparation for an all-out assault. When their position became untenable, they were to pull out and retreat to a predetermined rendezvous position twenty kilometers from Mist Village.

Itachi and the remaining member of the team would proceed to capture the objective and then make for the rendezvous position. If they weren't back in six hours, then any remaining members of his team were to abort the mission and fall back to Konoha via predetermined routes created to maximize confusion and shake off pursuers.

In retrospect, it had been a wise decision on his part to bring a Branch house Hyuuga along. The Byakugan was perfect for detecting mechanical traps that the Sharingan could not see while Itachi detected any permanent effect ninjutsu traps the other could not observe. They made an oddly well-matched pair in that regard. Also, the Hyuuga had provided invaluable information regarding enemy positions, emplacements and movement.

And the Hyuuga was just as expendable as any other ANBU he might have had in his arsenal. It would infuriate the Mist to no end to retrieve a Hyuuga body with rotten eyes. His expression softened from blank to predatory anticipation as he considered what he had to do next.

The Hyuuga sat next to him, his breathing as calm as Itachi's, though he could not hide his nervousness from the Commander with an infinite number of layers of pride or dignity. The Byakugan, a frighteningly powerful bloodline-limit, pulsated slowly as he refocused his cursed eyes through the low wall behind them to ferret out the positions of those jounin Itachi could sense.

_Too many, too close together_… he couldn't quite delineate between one ninja and the next.

The Hyuuga's fingers flicked a quick slash and then an elegant circle between the middle finger and thumb. The ANBU symbol for 'Surrounded.' Itachi responded by burying his left ring-finger into the knuckle joint of his thumb, then curling his forefinger and smallest finger over the opposable digit.

_How many?_

There was no delay in the reply. _Seventeen. Five of jounin level, four Mist Hunter-nin, and eight chuunin/jounin of undeterminable rank. _

He nodded, a sharp burst of motion with the muscles of his neck, by way of acknowledgement. The enemy did not know where they were, Itachi noted, or they would be under constant assault at this very moment. Sparing a second, the Uchiha Commander spun off several mental simulations and considered the outcome of as many different strategies.

A tense thirty seconds passed before the squad-leader decided on a course of action. His fingers flashed through twisted patterns, conveying concepts as easily as words ever could.

_Take side-street. I'll draw away some. Escape to rendezvous. _

There was a momentary hesitation as the Hyuuga absorbed the information, then he signed the word 'Understood.'

Itachi wondered if his subordinate knew he was being sacrificed. The Uchiha carried the scroll, not the Hyuuga. But that was hardly his concern. If the Hyuuga survived, then it would be considered an even greater victory. If he did not, then the mission was still successful.

Without another sign, Itachi gathered his feet under him and vaulted the low wall into the courtyard and began to run.

* * *

The first time he ever saw a Sharingan was at the age of four.

A clansman had come in the evening and informed his mother that his father had given his life to preserve the Clan. Neji hadn't even waited to hear the 'Honorable Sacrifice' rhetoric that inevitably followed such a pronouncement, to give some measure of comfort to the aggrieved, as though it _actually_ mattered.

Hyuuga Neji had sprung out of his chair and run as fast as his short legs would carry him to the Clan meeting hall. The doors were open and light radiated out into the twilight. It was cold outside, but none of the main house members really felt the need to close the door. In truth, after tonight's turn of events, none had the energy or will to bother closing a door.

In the young branch member dashed, up the long, shallow steps and into the central foyer.

There, his father was arranged on a pallet, his arms stoically laid out by his sides, eyes closed and forever darkened. He was dead. Fast-acting, painless poison, his uncle would later tell his mother, knowing full-well that Neji was hiding close by eavesdropping.

His widened eyes failed to register the shock on his elder's faces as he cried out to his beloved father, running to him and deftly avoiding their hands. They had not expected him to be there and none of them wanted him to observe such a proceeding.

He clung to his father's clothes, wadding the stiff material in his tiny fists and simply balling his eyes out. It was one thing to be told that his father was going to die and to see him dead. This was so much more personal, so much more real.

"Otou-sama!" he cried, willing his father to wake, to move, to do something, _anything_, but not to leave him, not like this…

The elders looked to one another, each unsure how to deal with the boy, but too uncomfortable with the situation itself to take immediate action. Hiashi himself looked beyond grief and this was simply grinding away whatever sanity he still possessed.

Then a strong hand affixed itself to Neji's shoulders and pealed him away from the corpse of his father. As they lifted him bodily, he kicked and struggled and punched with all the energy of a small, angry child, but it did him no good. It was like striking stone, even with his jyuuken, he could do nothing.

He turned to look at his attacker, who would dare touch him and separate him from his father.

His eyes met with the man holding him aloft and he instantly quieted.

They were red as blood, in a way no eye should _ever_ be, and they stared at him with a fiery intensity that scorched his very soul. Three strange black dots whirled slowly about the central pupil in each iris, frightening him all the more because things do not _spin _in a person's eye. Yet despite the sudden pang of fear and spike of adrenaline, Neji could feel a strange lightness come over his body. It was like these horrible eyes were staring into the depths of his soul and anesthetizing everything that made him a person.

Quieted, the man handed him, still held aloft bodily, to a surprised and nervous Hyuuga Hiashi.

"Commander," Neji heard, though it sounded as though coming from a million miles away rather from the short old man wearing white robes just a few feet thither. In his dazed state, Neji missed the hint of warning in his tone.

Hiashi fumbled with Neji, unaccustomed to holding a child, finally gripping him under the arms and firmly retrieving him from the demon-eyed man's grasp. As he pulled him back to the safety of his uncle's arms, Hyuuga Neji got his first good look at his assailant. A thin, high-boned face with a smooth nose, never broken, stared over his head into his uncle's eyes impassively. He stood in a calm, neutral stance that Neji did not recognize as a taijutsu position and allowed his arms to fall to his sides when the child was clear of them. His gray hair was tied back behind him, long enough to warrant the usage of a hair-tie at the nape of his neck. The lines on his face were straight and unmarred by the years of combat he had seen, though he looked no older than fifteen to Hyuuga Neji.

But those eyes… The young boy was enough of a prodigy to know that the evil man did _something _to him, but he had seen no seals, and felt no chakra.

Neji was terrified of this awful boy-man. Something was not right in the way he walked, the way he stood… how easily he moved through the gathering of people to return to the old, robed man's side. How could the Clan allow such an evil being into its most important building? He did not know and could not think straight.

By the time his head was finally clearing of the mist the demon put there, the ANBU were lifting the pallet from the dais and taking the body of his father with the old man. This old man, as he would learn later on in the evening, was the Sandaime Hokage, the leader of all the ninja in Konoha and the ultimate authority. His dark-haired companion was the ANBU Commander, an adolescent by the name of Uchiha Itachi, the Hokage's iron right fist. Not another word was said about him, no matter the number of questions Neji asked.

As they passed him, carrying his father out of his sight for the last time, Neji locked eyes with the crimson-eyed man once again.

There was a fleeting moment of understanding, and the last bit of haze in his head blew away as the older man reversed whatever it was he had done.

Just for a second, Neji fancied he saw pity in those vicious eyes. Pity masked by smug superiority and condescension. As such, he was destined to always hate and fear the Sharingan, the evil, damned eyes hidden in the face of an Uchiha. The eyes that took his father away, the eyes that rendered him powerless against them.

And then they were gone to a secret meeting to hand over the body of his father to an avaricious Cloud envoy desperate to get their hands on the Byakugan. Rapacious shadows on the edge of his mind were all he remembered as he fell into darkness.

* * *

The boy was stupid and young. If anything was in his eyes, Itachi would have honestly called it envy. That the young boy could express his emotions so freely before his clan elders without the fear of censure or sanction, it sickened him. This boy was no shinobi, would grow to be no great soldier or genius. If anything, Hyuuga Neji's outburst and inappropriate behavior merely cemented Itachi's long-held belief that the Hyuuga clan was weak.

But deep down, where no one but himself could see, he hated that the boy could show his heart so openly. _A Shinobi must possess a heart that does not show tears. _Itachi did. Never in his life could he recall feeling any emotion other than disappointment, hate, disgust, or relief. He was a man who did not experience his own emotions first-hand, needing to gauge the reactions of others to his presence to properly understand his own moods. He was a black hole, only detectable and quantifiable by the things it dislodges and displaces.

He felt scorn. This was the boy who his clan elders warned him to watch for? This was the prodigy that might one day replace him? Hardly. The Hyuuga clan was weak, beneath his concern, and a waste of his time.

The way they parted for him in their own meeting hall was disgusting. Had they no pride? Had they no spines? The greatest shinobi of the Hyuuga clan feared him, even in their _own_ domain. How disappointing. He had expected more.

But then again… Itachi was used to being disappointed.

* * *

The ground rolled beneath his feet, the sonic vibrations pushing their way through solids far faster than any other state of matter. It was only a few seconds before the shockwave caught up, blowing wind through his hair and kicking dust and debris into his eyes. He clenched his teeth to keep them from rattling and felt his bones shudder from the force.

It ruined the throw he was about to make and he was forced to wipe the grime from his face.

Nowhere in his mind does Uchiha Itachi stop to consider what caused the blast, because he already knew. It was a dead-man trigger on a vest of explosive notes. Explosive vests are worn under the standard body armor all ANBU have during deep cover or insertion missions. They're required for any ANBU who might be captured in enemy territory on a dangerous and potentially politically destabilizing mission. Designed to trigger when brain activity ceases or the heart stops for a period of time, the explosive vest completely destroys the remains of anyone wearing it. This is useful because if there is no body, then there is no proof of identity, and it limits the probability of a war being started from a bungled covert operation.

In addition, it gives greater incentive for shinobi of other villages to capture the ANBU alive for interrogation, which frequently leads to a greater probability of the ANBU being returned to the Leaf alive in a prisoner exchange or extracted by another ANBU team.

Not to mention, ten seconds is generally long enough to draw in a few unsuspecting ninja to examine the body, decimating them in the blast as well. It was an ingenious system, but incredibly suicidal and only used on high-risk missions such as this one. Itachi had to admit, the Fourth was a brilliant man to come up with something so recklessly devious.

The grime was out of his eyes and he saw that though his kunai went astray, the window pane adjacent to his target exploded from the force of the shockwave, lacerating the enemy jounin before he could react.

So in a way, his now-dead Hyuuga ally made up for throwing off his aim.

The Commander of the ANBU pressed on, slapping an exploding tag on the top of his target's head as he passed by. A half-second later, the dazed man's skull was violently evacuated by the resultant fireball. But he was out of Itachi's thoughts and below his mental radar already. The Uchiha was looking for another target to kill as he escaped from the Hidden Village.

Hopefully, the violent explosion would be enough to buy him a few minutes. Not that he needed it, but it gave him time to move carefully through the enemy village.

Strolling almost leisurely, Itachi flung a kunai at the rooftop to his left, catching an unprepared chuunin in the base of the spine; he was dead before he hit the ground. With effortless grace, he stretched out his hands to place identical explosive tags at the mouth of the alleyway he darted through. A pulse of chakra later and they were hidden from sight. More than enough to fool the tunnel-vision many pursuers get during the chase.

It was less than ten seconds later he heard them explode. Then there was silence. Chakra signatures dropped off his mental map.

Itachi smiled thinly. Mist-nin were so enthusiastic by nature that it betrayed them. Impulsive, expectant, and far too eager, they would throw themselves into battle without considering the consequences properly. This was, without question, the failings of a regimented training style that encouraged bloodthirstiness.

The sudden, violent movement of air behind him was all the warning Itachi received. Consequently, it was all the warning he needed.

Dodging left and tucking beneath the blow, he avoided the sword strike. Twisting his own ninjato in a fluid draw-cut, he cleared the space behind him, forcing the enemy Hunter-nin to back off or take a lethal wound. Hopping back, the Hunter-nin allowed Itachi to draw himself to his full, unthreatening height and lock eyes with him.

_Mistake. _

* * *

His eyes feel like they've been glued closed. His arm doesn't want to move either, despite his furious commands to lift up and clear whatever is holding his eyelids down. Fear and adrenaline course through him, because he can't see anymore and that's enough to scare him. All of his other senses are turned up all the way and he can feel his slack muscles tensing, ready to flinch at any sudden noise. He's provoked into fight-or-flight and he can't even move. Uchiha are protective of their eyes like that.

Forcing himself to calm down, his heart rate slows to a reasonable level. _Interpret any information you have before coming to a conclusion_. Something firm is beneath him, and guessing by the way gravity pulls on him, he's laying on his back. _A bed_, he rationalizes, _so someone has captured me_.

Sasuke tries to remember but all he can come up with is that last attack, the Rasengan smashing into the Chidori, a sharp burst of pain in his forehead, and then blackness. He can't remember how long he's been awake and doesn't remember waking up, because time has no meaning when you are held sightless and motionless.

_Am I dead?_ This doesn't worry him as much as he thought it would. His entire life he's been chasing death, the sudden end and lack of sensation that comes with eternal blackness, with the single-minded determination he's known for. If he's dead, then this was all the farther he could go.

Odd that, that he can still _think_. If he can still think, then he can still consider his failures, his shortcomings, his _betrayals_… and this must be some form of hell. Sasuke doesn't believe in hell. Sasuke doesn't believe in anything. But if he were to believe in that afterlife nonsense, he'd suspect that hell wouldn't have beds. So hell is out of the question and he must be somewhere else.

Sudden fear stabs through him, cutting through the fog in his head like a knife through flesh, _Am I paralyzed? _This terrifies him. To be incapable of moving, little more than a vegetable… the inevitable outpouring of sympathy and pity… _che_… He would rather be dead. _Any _shinobi would rather be dead, because what is being immobile to one who has crossed the world by tree or run along the surface of the ocean? What is stillness to one who was once the most free of all creatures?

It is unbearable. A mercy-killing would be better than that. But the Leaf doesn't do that sort of thing.

From far away, he can hear a noise… a scuffle followed by a clank. The sound of a padded door opening. Footsteps, light and even. A woman, taking her time in crossing the room to where he lay. He doesn't recognize the footsteps. So it wasn't Sakura, for which he was thankful. Her emotional outburst lacked both pattern and reason and they made the young Uchiha uncomfortable.

Using ever last bit of willpower he possesses, Uchiha Sasuke forces his eyes open halfway.

Soft light illuminates the room, but stings his eyes even still. He ignores the pain and waits for them to adjust. They do, but far more slowly than he is accustomed to, which frightens him even more so. If his eyes are damaged then what about his Sharingan? He _needs_ that… perhaps more than anything else.

A woman leans over him, twisting the knobs on several intravenous drips closed. The clear fluids dripping from the four solution bags into his arms and legs halt. She sighs heavily and straightens up, placing on hand on her hip and favoring him with the same look one might give an insect or other insignificant annoyance. It is the same look he always gave Sakura and Naruto. Funny how it makes him want to shrivel up and die.

The woman calmly waits. For how long, Sasuke does not know. He examines her, looking her over with the inquisitive eye of the Last Uchiha. She is short, no more than 160 centimeters. Her hair is a platinum blonde that makes him think she is related to Ino, but the hard, caustic brown eyes tell him otherwise. Her face is youthful, beautiful even, but it's drawn up in a disapproving frown that just seems angry and immature on a face that young. She's an authority figure of some sort, but Sasuke cannot remember who she is. Definitely a kunoichi, that much is obvious by the way she stands, unlike that of a women who's primary concern is domesticity.

His fingers are tingling and he flexes them; the action draws those angry chocolate eyes away from his face. Sasuke is unconcerned by her and a small thrill passes through him as feeling rushes up his back from his feet. In his sandals he wiggles his toes, and although he has never indulged in such a petty action before, he feels it appropriate at this moment.

"You're awake." It isn't a question and it's far from friendly. He swallows thickly, whatever it was in those fluid IVs still hasn't worn off completely. But it is probably enough for him to sit up.

He struggles upright and she does not assist. _So she's not my nurse…_ but even still there is an odd sense of déjà vu about her. Somewhere, Sasuke has seen this woman.

Crossing her arms under her comically large breasts, she lets out a small harrumphing noise.

It clicks. This woman is that medic-nin lady that woke him up from the coma induced by Itachi's Tsukiyomi attack. This is Tsunade, the legendary Sannin, and the Godaime Hokage of Konohagakure. He did not expect her to be so young… but then he examines her massive endowment again and realizes that she's cloaked herself in genjutsu. A powerful one that he would need his Sharingan to see through, but Sasuke can't seem to get up the strength to summon it. His chakra is pulsing and weak, probably from some sort of injury Naruto dealt him or an after-effect of the curse seal level two. All he knows is that he failed to get to Orochimaru… which means he's still in Konoha.

He allows himself a bitter chuckle and leans back against the headboard. _So Naruto succeeded then, huh?_

"Akimichi Chouji is dead," Tsunade says, cutting into the silence. Her eyes are staring into his again, boldly, unflinchingly. Sasuke can remember a day when people were afraid to look an Uchiha in the eyes. He didn't understand the meaning of it at the time, but he still thinks it's sad how that day has passed. The back of his mind reports that his kunai holster on his leg is missing.

"Metabolic Cascade Failure brought on by a lack of required caloric intake to maintain his technique," she continues, the hard edge growing in her voice. The Uchiha is only half-listening, dedicating the other half of his mind to memorizing the room. Padded, white, sterile. Toilet and wash basin within five feet of the bed. They're made out of something metal and probably welded in place, so he won't be able to use that as a weapon.

Sasuke understands every word she says, but he doesn't care about Chouji; he would even go so far as to say that it's fitting. He literally _ate_ himself to death. "The fat-ass got himself killed?" He's chained to this bed, the feeling in his ankles has come back enough now for him to feel the shackles there. Without chakra, he's trapped here, so he attempts to infuriate his captor in the hopes she'll present a weakness that he can take advantage of.

It doesn't take much. Her gorgeous face screws up and goes an interesting hue of red. Steam almost shoots from her ears and she has to count to ten to restrain herself. _How dare that little shit?_ Tsunade regrets the necessity of keeping Uchiha Sasuke out of Orochimaru's hands. More over, she regrets the cruel necessity of keeping him _alive_.

"I hope you like the furnishings in here," her graceful hands rap knuckles smartly on the wash basin, "Because you're going _nowhere_ for a very long time."

He says nothing, because he can tell she wants a reaction. Satisfying her capricious feminine whims is not high on his list of things to do. He merely stares at her, blankly enough that she's not entirely sure the medication has worked its way out of his system yet.

"You're to be confined in this room indefinitely. You are not allowed to train, you are not allowed possessions, and you are most definitely not allowed to leave."

His lips curl into a sneer and before he can stop himself, Sasuke shouts, "You can't expect me to just _sit _here?"

"You misunderstand, Uchiha," she's smiling in a way he does not like now, and the use of his surname surprises him. No one ever calls him Uchiha without the use of his given name as well, "You're being punished. While all your friends get to grow up, get stronger, and get promoted, you get to sit here in this padded room." She's getting a visceral thrill out of this, he realizes, but he does not understand why.

"You can't do this," he rasps quietly, more to reassure himself than to make an actual statement. He's firm in the belief that nothing will happen to him, even as he's chained to a bed in a padded room beneath the ANBU headquarters. They can't do anything to him without a trial, there's that pesky due-process thing, and he knows he can afford a legal counselor that will keep him from prison. _Do they really put ninja in prison? _He wonders what the point would be, as most shinobi worth their salt can pick locks. Not Naruto, of course, but why pick a lock when you can go _through _a door?

"I most certainly can," she snaps, "I am the Godaime Hokage and I can do anything I want. We are at war with the Sound and you tried to defect to them. The way I see it, brat," she spat the last word, hurling it like a curse without any of the affection she generally directs at Naruto, "that makes you a traitor. Traitors are guilty of treason. As you are, or were, one of my ninja, then you're dumb ass isn't covered by the trial laws Fire Country has set in place to protect civilians. You're paramilitary and _that_ means you are judged on harsher standards, especially now that we're engaged in fighting.

"But being the Hokage in a time of war means I can suspend the elder council's decision-making privileges in favor of my own, enlightened reasoning," she's grinning again, and it's not a friendly sort of smile. "So I can _keep _you here, under lock-and-key, for as long as I like and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it."

His mouth opens and closes like a fish, jaw working but no sound is coming forth. She waits, arms crossed under her chest and an eyebrow raised. This reaction isn't satisfying her, because she's had Naruto's report so she knows how he completely lost his cool in their fight. Not that Naruto was any better off, mind you, but she expects the blonde boy to fight like a man possessed. Sasuke should never fight like a berserker, because he's just not built for it. He's long and lithe, bred for speed and not power. Uchiha, almost as a rule, had weak chakra-stamina, leading them to be as efficient as possible in battle. Not wild and out-of-control.

Naruto's built for staying power, because he can wear his opponent down with little risk to himself. He's solid, like a piece of marble or, more likely, granite. Even with the cursed-seal at level two, Sasuke could not match Naruto in a head-on strength match. To say otherwise is asinine.

Sasuke played the game Naruto's way and simply lost.

_Why isn't he flying off the handle yet? _She sighs mentally, not giving him the satisfaction of hearing her impatience. It is funny that she's less impatient than Sasuke, probably because she's so much older. Sasuke can't hold himself together for his lack of patience. Everything has to be done now, as fast as possible, so that he can be finished and get back to working toward his ultimate goal.

"Haruno Sakura has been asking me about you, did you know?" Sasuke doesn't react, but then she didn't expect he would. The sting, the punch-line, is still to come. "Every single day she asks me if she can come and see you, but I tell her 'No.' Because you're a traitor and I don't want you contaminating my ninja, especially not one as promising as she is."

Sasuke's ears perk up and even though he holds himself outwardly still, Tsunade can see the tension manifest in him by increased blood-pressure and heart-rate. Medic-nin are useful for things like that, after all. _Time to bait the trap…_

"Oh yeah, she's got some real potential in her. Great chakra control, quick learner, and _intelligent_," Tsunade smiles, "She'll go far as my apprentice." The smile is false, because Tsunade feels no compassion for a girl who can't do anything but cry. She hates that part of herself so much now, that she ran away and cried when life got hard. The medic sennin simply _cannot_ tolerate it in others. Naruto never gets swallowed in self-pity, unlike just about everyone else he's ever met.

Self-pity does a lot of things to different people. Neji's personal vendetta is nothing more than self-pity's crusade. Hinata doesn't speak out and falls away into that blackness. The Copy-nin stares at a stone for hours at a time and hides behind pornography. Lee's training is inspired to new heights of self-destructive fervor by self-pity; feelings of inadequacy are nasty that way. Tenten feels she can't match up with the boys, and is very touchy about the topic of gender. That one doesn't surprise Tsunade, because she knew her mother. Gai is much like his protégé, pushing himself to match Sharingan Kakashi in games that favor genius instead of hard-work. It gives Anko nightmares that would break lesser individuals. It made her frightened of blood. Gaara hurts people because he can't properly express his displeasure with the state of the world. Ino's convinced herself that she's not smart enough, clever enough, pretty enough. Shikamaru can't accept responsibility. Chouji eats to make himself feel better. And all Sakura can do is cry. Because of _it_.

But Naruto doesn't let self-pity get in the way of his life. He has places to go and people to fight and things to _do_ that will prove he's the best. He's inured to hurt and suffering, and that's probably what makes him the strongest of all of them. It is _certainly_ why Tsunade respects him so much.

So it should be interesting to see if this tirade of vengeance stems from self-pity or from something darker, something more dangerous. Signs point to the latter, but Tsunade's not quiet willing to write him off yet. The elder council seems completely willing to let him off with a simply ANBU guard.

Tsunade's lip curls in disgust. So consumed with the past, the council is willing to bend over backwards, break any rule, to return things to the way they once were. The Uchiha were a pillar of stability in the community of Konoha and the veiled threat the Hokage could use in dire times, much like a big stick to be shaken at an enemy. Point and click. The whole damn clan was a primed and loaded weapon. Throw in the borderline mental instability most of the Sharingan users suffered and they were far too unstable.

In a way, Tsunade thinks that the massacre was a positive thing for Konoha. No more overbearing Uchiha police, no more stealing family techniques preserved over generations. Hell, in the past five years, more family styles have been cataloged and exhibited in the chuunin exams than in the thirty years preceding the massacre.

And if only so that she doesn't have to deal with more of these stupid Uchiha.

Sasuke interrupts her thoughts, "Your… apprentice? Sakura's… the Hokage's apprentice?"

_Back to work._ "Mmhmm," the blonde woman confirms, and something boils over in Sasuke's eyes. She neglects to mention that Tsunade really doesn't want a cry-baby or a whiner as an apprentice. Her first protégé was just peachy, acting as mother and conscience, and that worked out alright. Shizune was a good little girl and learned what Tsunade taught without complain or compunction. Tsunade doesn't want another apprentice, but Naruto asked without thinking first and Kakashi hinted unsubtly and Sakura put two-and-two together and then got her hopes up. How could Tsunade say no to that? How could she crush a girl's fragile hopes? Were she uncaring or ruthless, the Godaime Hokage might have just smashed them because her own hopes and dreams turned to dust and ash in her mouth, but she's not. The voluptuous woman can't be callous and indifferent anymore, because Naruto fixed that.

_Damn brat. He makes everything so difficult._

But Sasuke is oblivious to her reservations and something inside begins to break. His hands fist the thin sheets of his bed and those dead-black eyes have fixed themselves on the floor, twitching back and forth every so often.

"Naruto's going off for a couple years to train with Jiraiya, so he'll be out of my hair for a while," the beautiful woman states conversationally, as though they aren't in a cell and one of them isn't an enemy of the state, "I figure he'll come back stronger than ever. Not like the boy he is now, but a young man." She nods her head in appreciation, because she's carried around the mental picture of what Nawaki should have looked like at age 15, and it transitions to Naruto so well. Sasuke twitches for a moment, his whole body shaking with anger, but then he masters himself. Her full lips pull up in one corner like a condescending smirk.

"But more importantly, the terms of your punishment," she clears her throat to draw his attention and begins to speak in her most official voice. During her entire five minute speech, which is essentially a summary of the elder council's final decision that has been heavily edited to fit her purposes, Sasuke does not look at her. He's lost in his own little world, and even words like 'Sealed' and 'Imprisonment' do not provoke a reaction. This disappoints her, because she wants to see him snap.

Her final decision is this: Sasuke's Cursed Seal has been covered by three concentric seals, in the aspect of Ring, Cup and Staff, respectively. These form the complex Three-Gate Essence Trap seal, which binds his chakra pathways through the control seals, routing the chakra exit-vector through the cursed seal. But it even goes so far to cap these pathways, making it something like a mesh grating over a pipeline, which will dissipate all chakra Sasuke attempts to mold uselessly.

As long as the Three-Gate Essence Trap remains in place, Sasuke will never be able to manipulate his cursed seal or use jutsu. He will be unable to perform the tree-leap movement, or walk on water, or even emit chakra from a specific part of his body.

As she watches, some of her words strike. His dark eyes go wide, surprised and frightened. The raven-haired avenger is attempting to access his Sharingan, but feels it slipping through his mental hold like water through fingers. It's not coming, no matter how hard he pushes. And fire spreads outward from his shoulder every time he tries. The wasted chakra is irritating Orochimaru's mark, forcing it to activate.

Every single time he will mold chakra, not only will it fail, but Sasuke will get an unsubtle reminder of his betrayal in the form of burning agony.

But that's not enough. This is _treason_, possibly even high treason, as he's the last possessor of the Leaf's most treasured and feared bloodline limit. Kind of. Any other ninja would be executed for treason and failed, premeditated defection. And, really, Tsunade would have easily signed his death sentence and slept well that night. But Naruto still believes in him, and even she can't just sweep something like that under the rug.

Sasuke will be imprisoned and kept under strict twenty-four hour guard until the situation with Orochimaru has been settled. If, at that time, the Hokage decides that he has been adequately punished for his transgressions, then his situation will be reassessed. He'll probably be set free, because the council will be capable of upholding their decision at some undetermined point in the future. Probably. But she'll be able to hold him here now and for the foreseeable future and Tsunade will just have to be satisfied with that.

There's only so much hurt she can inflict without brutalizing him herself. Not that the ANBU guards would care, being loyal to a fault. But Tsunade is a healer, even with her super-strength, and beating prisoners is something that she _cannot _do.

So she settles, because she's a woman, and they're experts at settling for less. She saw what condition Naruto was in after their battle. The Godaime Hokage was there when they all drifted back through the gates, broken and tired, some on the brink of death. The injuries they sustained were very unfortunate and if she weren't so out of her mind with worry over Naruto, she might have reacted more compassionately. When Naruto stumbled back through the gates with Kakashi, Tsunade's heart almost gave out.

He _devastated _Naruto, even in losing. He almost destroyed him, even in failing to kill him. For that offense, Tsunade will do everything in her power to make Uchiha Sasuke _suffer. _He will _burn_ for his transgressions, even if she must put the torch to him herself.

There is no punishment severe enough to fit the crime Uchiha Sasuke has committed. But if she has her way, he will pay for it for the rest of his life, natural or unnatural.

She waits, hoping that he'll say something, even an expression of guilt. An apology, even as hollow and insufficient as it would sound, would be better than this brooding silence, but then Tsunade has talked to people who know Uchiha Sasuke better than anyone else and this silence is common. It is something that the Sannin prepared for.

A part of her, the 'violent, drunk on her own power part wants him' to get angry and take a swing at her. Hopes for it really. _Give me an excuse to hurt you like I want to_, it says. But silently and accidentally, he doesn't provide the desired reason. She expects him to sit here and not say anything, because he's the sort that won't speak as a form of spite. He's used to people trying to get a rise out of him, and he's become an expert at not speaking when he really wants to. He won't bend first.

The Godaime Hokage waits in vain. Eventually she remembers that she has other responsibilities and departs. She does not say goodbye or give him any reason to believe that he will ever see another living being. But then, someone has to feed him, so he figures that _somebody_ has to provide food.

He finds himself hoping that they wear a mask, because he's not sure he can take their pitying stares or their accusing glares. Sasuke can only say one thing, and that is that he is very glad he doesn't have to endure visitors. Naruto's resolve-hardened blue eyes gaze unwaveringly at him from the depths of his memories before he pushes them down. Sakura's tearful confession and sniveling demeanor would drive him mad, if they were his only human contact day after day. Kakashi's judging silence, so similar to his own, his presence oozing smug superiority.

It is better this way, he tells himself. Without distraction, he can strive for… what? Inner harmony? Enlightenment? He's lost everything, so what does it matter anymore?

He reclines against the pillow and frame and tries to deal with the newfound realization that he is useless and weak once again. That even with Orochimaru's power, he was defeated.

Failures pushing in from all sides, Sasuke just tries to deal with the silence.

_

* * *

One step from my horizon  
__I think I dream I wonder  
__My honor yearns for reason  
__I plant this seed of treason  
__I'm the Sky, I'm the Heavens  
__I declare my intentions  
__Rain down, Bleed forever  
__Nothing's held from the dead  
__Rip down the stars, both hands  
__And wait for the sign, my final act  
__Die with the sun, burn cold  
__I'll empty the sky just to believe  
__I sow I reap I return  
__Dealing out retribution  
__Let truth be known through bloodshed  
__I'm the Sky, I'm the Heavens  
__I declare my intentions  
__Weighed down, False endeavor  
__Truth revealed at my end  
__Rip down the stars, both hands  
__And wait for the sign, my final act  
__Die with the sun, burn cold  
__I'll empty the sky just to believe  
__I will fall and thus the sky will follow  
__I will fall and thus the sky will follow  
__- Empty the Sky, Divinity Destroyed_

Itachi likes chemistry. It's something he's always had a passion for, as much as he has passions that is. He finds it fascinating how everything in the world can be constructed from tiny little bits of the same thing. Everyone is made of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and a grab-bag of other trace elements. Potassium, nitrogen, calcium are all in there, somewhere. It is the order and arrangement of all these tiny little things that changes an unimpressive mass of molecules like, say, animal dung into ammonium nitrate. The only difference between Umino Iruka and Uchiha Itachi is those selfsame little bits, and _look_ at the results.

Admittedly, he studied chemistry because it was important for him to learn. How many everyday substances can be used as weapons, or refined with minimal effort into something deadly? The sort of effort he could muster on a field operation? What combusts when exposed to an ignition source (something of a specialty of his, being an Uchiha and all) and what _explodes_, the critical difference being the rate of combustion and the force exerted during the process.

"Either way, brother," Sasuke declares, standing eye to eye with the demon he's carried in his mind since the night he stumbled into a massacre, "It ends tonight."

Chemistry is important. Yet another way of killing, of making his living, and few people ever see the esoteric chemical compound that ends them. It is important to _him_, because Itachi is a man who has _never_ thrown away a tool in his life. He is an Uchiha. He is _the _Uchiha, a penultimate expression of an ideal. And Uchiha are (_were_) versatile, because their eyes given them dozens more options than any other shinobi could ever hope to match.

That demon chooses not to respond, already formulating his opening gambit against the younger man.

But now that he thinks about it, despite the complexity of the arrangements in their component molecules, the human mind is very simple. It's primal, brutal, and even _elemental._ It is humorous to him that he never saw it before.

Sasuke is like lead, heavy and slow, but undeniably attractive. However, he is inimical, poisonous to the body and soul. No one he has ever met has come away whole or hale but most can't bring themselves to blame the poor, tragic survivor. The Last Uchiha.

Sasuke strikes at him, but Itachi evades. Even as the younger Uchiha recovers, Itachi applies force to the back of his brother's neck with the point of his elbow. Crashing down to his knees and dazed, he watches as Itachi calmly steps away, giving his brother time to gather his feet beneath him.

Itachi bites down on his irritation. Last Uchiha _indeed_. If anything _Itachi_ is the Last Uchiha, the last scion who both remembers and understands their ideals. Even now, he still strives to achieve their goals with a will he cannot deny. The temptation to go beyond is… irresistible, even for one such as him.

Unlike Sasuke, Itachi's elemental nature is iron. Strength, rigidity, resistance. Iron, just like lead, is atomically stable. Things make take a different path to get there, but in the end iron and lead are the result. And just like Sasuke, Itachi was once molded into something too. Forged with carbon ash, iron becomes steel and a whole world of possibilities open. Steel is light, flexible and yet unyielding at the same time, and is used in a plethora of different situations.

Lead, when alloyed with silver, becomes pewter, a far more aesthetically-pleasing derivative. Worked, it becomes something pretty, something worth observing, and perhaps even something worth displaying. Iron doesn't behave like that. Iron is used for practical purposes, function before form is even considered. Itachi has never been anything but a shinobi, never a child, never a friend and certainly never a _man_.

In his effort to reach the nirvana of existence as a perfect shinobi, he has forgotten about things here and there that normal people take pleasure in and take for granted. The elder Uchiha has never been with a woman, but he cannot bring himself to see a loss in it. He doesn't see this as problem with his masculinity or an inherent flaw of his character, because he can remember women from his adolescence who would have given their whole _soul_, not disregarding their bodies, to capture him.

Monogamy. There's another thing he doesn't understand, but this stems from the fact Itachi has only ever learned to appreciate a woman for her skills on the battlefield or her capabilities with medical-ninjutsu. (Kunoichi all _inevitably_ take up the path of the medic-nin, just as they are all talented with genjutsu in his experience.) That is not entirely true, but for the sake of avoiding chauvinism, he fails to add 'and her skill at making meals' or 'child-rearing' to the list, despite these being the salient examples of women in his early years. Though he colors it being counter-traditionalist, rather than sexist, because he favors himself a rebel. It's a truth, technically, however, in reality it is a jaunty, idealized view of himself that he carries around, deep in the back of his mind. Despite his best efforts, he can't seem to rid himself of even basic human self-aggrandizement.

Growling, angry now, Sasuke launches himself in his brother's direction, only to have his charge stopped dead by the elder Uchiha's flawless crescent heel kick. Sasuke almost cries out from the pain. Almost. But he bears it and rolls back away from Itachi, then comes in low again and Itachi is forced to defend himself now.

Iron is forged into weapons precisely because it forms and holds an edge. It can be made sharp enough to cut through flesh at the merest touch, and that's what Uchiha Itachi is, a weapon. Sasuke is a weapon as well, but lead is soft and deforms with too much pressure. Iron just holds an edge better.

It makes a better weapon.

Fire washes over him, and Sasuke is thrown to the ground, crossing his arms before his face in a warding gesture to hold away the flames. This blocks his vision for just a moment, and Itachi takes advantage. A dozen senbon needles seemingly sprout from critical locations across his body, pinning joints open and limiting his movement to a scent few degrees in every direction. Only a former ANBU could have known the exact right locations to target and only an Uchiha could have seen them through the flames.

The younger Uchiha collapses under his own weight, unable to shift his legs enough to compensate for his momentum. It drives the senbon under his kneecaps deeper into his skin and now he cries out. It's a soft sound, barely loud enough to be heard, but it carries like a scream and Itachi hears.

"You are nothing," the rogue ninja says. Sasuke stays quiet, because he knows that he's already lost, just as quickly as the fight began it is over. He shifts his head on his neck, only to feel the two senbon there grind against vertebrae. Blood oozes slowly from torn flesh, flowing slowly down to pool between his shoulder blades.

"I should have just killed you along with all the others," Itachi remarks, and Sasuke realizes that his brother is thinking aloud, perhaps for the first time in his life, "Incapable of even following the simplest of orders. Worthless."

This burns Sasuke. It sears him like no flame ever could and a strange burning sensation works its way up his throat. He does not know it is a scream of rage, but he holds it in, for now. It might be vomit, and Sasuke doesn't want to embarrass himself anymore than he already has. Though it could just as easily be a cry of pain or grief, and that's even worse than vomit, in his mind.

"You… bastard…" Sasuke wheezes. Itachi looms over him now, staring at him with those relentless, dead, soulless Sharingan eyes. His thin lips are drawn together in a hard line, curled at one corner ever-so-slightly to express his disgust. His aqualine nose is flared just a bit and the standing man is sneering.

"What would you have me do Sasuke?" Itachi asks, and that's startling, "What would you do if you were in my position?"

Sasuke returns his brother's glare evenly and does not respond. Itachi waits patiently and they stare one another down. The younger brother is at an obvious disadvantage, what with being maimed and bleeding and laying awkwardly on the ground, but Sasuke has been nothing if not stubborn his entire life.

"Go home Sasuke," the older brother says after a pregnant pause, breaking the sharp silence. There is weariness in his words that Sasuke has never heard before and his glare has evaporated now. "Don't come after me again."

Sasuke's heart stops in his throat. His brother is pushing him aside again. The younger man will be forgotten, discarded, in favor of Itachi's self-appointed mission. _No_, Sasuke thinks, _Not again_. _Not this time_. He refuses to be sacrificed or used for his brother's mad plans and shadowy logic anymore. Uchiha Sasuke is going to make his own way in life, and he's going to _start_ by avenging his clan.

That scream of rage finally claws its way out of his mouth as the Uchiha progeny lunges from his prone position, fist preceding body in a chakra-enhanced right hook that lacks both subtlety and defensive capacity, but Sasuke doesn't care anymore. He's tired of running, he's tired of hiding, and above all, he's tired of living miserably.

As though he expected the outburst, Itachi flows around Sasuke's awkward blow, grasping his wrist and pulling hard. Balance lost, the younger Uchiha stumbles forward until his chest presses against his brother's. They are face to face, eyes inches apart.

"Leave." The quiet force that permeates the elder man seems to double in intensity. Sasuke's tired and broken mind is awash with anger, but he's still sharp enough to notice the lack of breath from his brother's mouth. The lack of breath minimizes the noise caused by the use of his mouth. ANBU are commonly taught how to throw their voices and control the sound produced, but Sasuke doesn't know anyone who has ever gone so far as to control every inhalation and exhalation for maximum stealth.

Itachi is the iron forged by the crucible of combat into the steely shinobi before him. The tungsten-carbide coating of experience and training merely coats and protects the Uchiha prodigy, reduces wear and tear accumulated from years on the road and innumerable deaths by his hand. Controlled breathing is as much a part of him as ruthless efficiency or callous indifference. Casually, as though no more concerned with straightening his clothing, Itachi pushes his brother to the ground, purposefully allowing Sasuke to fall hard on the tips of several senbon.

He does not enjoy the look of agony that flashes momentarily across his sibling's face. In truth, Itachi understands why Sasuke tries to hide his pain, especially in front of _him._ It's a useless effort, because the one still standing has seen all the forms of pain a man can feel, and dealt almost all of them. Sasuke can no more hide the pain he's enduring than he could travel backward in time or discover the secrets of the universe on the back of a milk carton.

Turning away, the Akatsuki member makes as if to leave. He's taken those Sharingan off of his brother, deciding that he poses no threat anymore. It is strange that Itachi allows Sasuke to live, when he has killed so many. During the course of his life, he has killed for money, for vengeance, and most importantly, for power. He has killed when slighted, when insulted, when ignored. He has killed to be noticed, to cause suffering, to fulfill a contract.

But he does not kill Sasuke. Never Sasuke. There are some lines even the Akatsuki will not cross.

The pain Itachi forces Sasuke to endure is a lesson, like everything the elder brother gives the younger. Carefully planned for maximum effect, the grey-haired man molds Sasuke until he becomes something useful, the final tool to unlock what Itachi searches for.

Sasuke lunges from the ground, thrusting a sharpened hunk of steel toward his brother's unprotected back. He is screaming now, partially from pain but mostly out of hate and spite. His brother refuses to die, and Sasuke doesn't understand why he will not fall down _dead_. The Uchiha progeny needs to move on with his life. This chapter needs to be closed, because Sasuke has other business to attend to, and other people to kill. He can't bear the insomnia, but the teen just goes to pieces when he dreams about _it_.

He feels the kunai catch for a second, hears the tearing of cloth, and then feels his brother jerk away in a motion almost too clumsy to be Itachi. The hit is scored, and even if it wasn't enough, Sasuke will still be satisfied, because this is closer to his goal than he has ever come before. Whatever consequence he will face, it was worth it.

Momentum unabated, he stumbles forward, those damned senbon pinning his muscles in awkward positions. Unable to maintain his balance, the dark-haired shinobi crashes to the ground once again.

His fingertips are wet with blood, but Itachi stares at them with an almost clinical detachment. It has been a long time since the rogue ninja has seen his own blood. This makes it almost a novelty to him. At the very least, it is thought-provoking and shocking to some degree. In being invincible for so long, Itachi has forgotten how to react to being injured.

It takes him close to three seconds to figure out an appropriate response. But the flesh around the wound is tingling oddly. Dimly, Itachi remembers wounds not feeling quite like that, years ago when he last had one. Forsaking dignity, he checks himself and finds a razor cut along the underside of his left arm. At the edge of his sight, Sasuke is watching with something akin to rapt fascination. He looks delighted at his minor victory, as though a simple scratch could possibly win him the entire battle. The aura of invulnerability is destroyed by just a little nick, and if Sasuke's gone so far, then certainly he can summon the strength to go the last mile.

Itachi cannot have such baseless assumptions. He _will not_ tolerate foolishness from Sasuke. To allow his brother to entertain fanciful illusions would be to destroy all that Itachi has worked for.

So there's only one thing left to do, even though it will cause a set-back to his plans. The time schedule will be thrown completely off, but in retrospect, he guesses that there is nothing he can really do about it. This was inevitable.

Sasuke struggles to his hands and knees, now laughing weakly. He's enjoying his little victory and, quite probably, the last little bit of life he'll get. This is, he thinks, not a bad way to go out. All in all, it is fitting.

Then his brother kicks him in the stomach, hard enough to lift his entire body from the ground and skips him across the clearing floor. He lands on his arm and feels the ribs all down his side vibrate to the impact. Something gives around the senbon in his elbow, ripping the sharpened needle free with a dull sucking noise. Blood pulses freely from the new wound, but Sasuke's pinned his arm under his body and he cannot see it. For that matter, the Uchiha progeny cannot _feel _the wound either and that bothers him more.

It's not the only needle pulled loose by his wild tumble, but he's merely traded lack of mobility for blood loss. Both of them are equally appealing and yet neither is desirable. Funny that.

Sasuke drags himself back to his knees, pulling his body erect just in time to catch the heel of Itachi's backhanded palm-strike with his mouth. It snaps his head back and ever so slowly he topples backward. Spinning in the reverse direction so fast it seems an illusion, the Akatsuki flicks his foot into the path his brother is taking. His heel strikes a few centimeters beneath Sasuke's left armpit, dashing him down, against the ground. The shorter man bounces once, then comes to a stop.

The breath has been dashed from his lungs and his wide Sharingan are panicked as he gasps for breath that will not come.

He looks up into dual three-armed spirals. Just for a second, he is mesmerized, frozen in unblinking fascination. The natural evolution of his own eyes made manifest before his eyes. Even from this distance, Sasuke can feel the unlocked power, the raw, highly-controlled essence of the Sharingan in his mind, like a burn scar across his psyche.

It is not pleasant. Gritting his teeth, Sasuke forces his eyelids closed, but they only fall halfway. The sclera feels as though it's swelling, filling with fluids until the soft, fleshy orbs can take no more and will burst. Pain rings through his skull and the dull thump of his heart beat fills his ears. Something is on the tip of his tongue, but he cannot expel it from his mouth. His breathing is short and rapid, and soon enough he'll hyperventilate. This is wrong, it's all wrong. Itachi has done something to him, but he cannot understand it. The eyes he prizes so much show him no trickery or technique, but intellectually, he suspects this is some scheme of his brother's design.

Itachi watches, staring with the implacable gaze of the Mangekyou Sharingan, coldly monitoring his brother's internal plight. It's been almost ten years since he grasped the power offered to him with both hands. Now, after much internalizing and self-realization, the grey-haired man has come to be a master of the most powerful Sharingan form. Holding it open is child's play. Seeing the world as it really is does not pose trouble for him.

He can see deep into Sasuke's mind, through the eyes he cannot close. The Mangekyou Sharingan allows him that much control. Pushing past the troublesome guards everyone maintains around their most personal memories is no more difficult than opening a door.

This is not a desirable method of achieving his goals, but if it brings about what he wants, Itachi will finish this unpleasant task. That's the sort of man he is, anything for the mission.

Door opened, Itachi proceeds to examine the contents of Sasuke's mind. Sifting through like a man panning for gold, he holds up each and every one of Sasuke's fuzzy memories to the light, looking for a little glint of what he's hunting.

It feels like a marching band crashing through his childhood. All the most embarrassing and frightening moments of Sasuke's life are relived, though through the haze of time. It's not the Tsukiyomi; these memories do not have the power to hurt. It's in muted color and soft sound, just as Sasuke remembers. But for some reason, they stab his fragile pride like a thousand knives.

_Naruto has a thunderous power. I'm inferior. How can I get that sort of power?  
__I'm an avenger. I'll do anything for power, even if I have to sell my body to the devil himself._

The speed of his flashing memories increases now, and there is a quiet desperation on his brother's face. Whatever he's looking for, he hasn't found yet, and for that Sasuke is thankful. All he needs is to hold out just a little bit longer, just a little bit more time is all he needs. But Itachi increases the pressure of his mental deadlock, pushing past his brother's momentary resistance like a flood crashing over a dam. He's too deep, too quick, too broad for the younger man to hold back, just as he has always been.

_Hey… dead-last… what did Sakura tell you?  
__You won't lay a finger on my forehead._

It's a fever pitch now, memories beginning and terminating before they reach a natural completion. Half his life is being viewed in half an instant. Pain wracks him and he draws his arms about himself as though to ward it off. It does not work.

Then, Itachi finds what he's looking for. A single, fragile memory hidden away at the very back of Sasuke's mind. It was so small, so well hidden, that the Akatsuki almost didn't find it.

_For you have become my best friend._

And just as quickly as it began, this phantom pain stops. The mysterious swelling of his eyes subsides and the feeling of broken and cracked ribs floods back. It is agony, but he does not cry out. Sasuke's ears ring with silence, and he's sure his balance is thrown off, but that's alright because whatever his brother did to him is over now.

Itachi is not pleased by what he sees. He found what he is looking for, but it is not as he expects. Nothing… nothing works… everything's broken.

To express the depths of his displeasure, he breaks Sasuke's collarbone. A straight snap kick delivered at the perfect angle and speed to shatter bone, a practiced move from a long-gone day when he used to brutalize prisoners undergoing interrogation. Sasuke's body falls limply backward, tumbling from his knees to his shoulder.

Itachi is angry now, and it shows. His Sharingan eyes have narrowed to venomous crimson slits. He can't remember the last time he was this furious, this wild and out-of-control. The stone walled persona he has built around himself is crumbling, the flames inside licking higher than ever before. He is _incensed_ and only blood and pain will sate his fury.

Sasuke's bleary eyes open just in time to see Itachi reach down for a handful of his raven hair, the same distinctive every-which-way mop of blackness every girl looked for and every boy hated. The strands pull tight against the thin skin atop his skull as he is lifted bodily. He's gone comfortably numb, though, and makes no attempt to stop his brother from beating the living shit out of him.

Itachi pulls back a fist, all finesse and form gone in the haze of anger, but dark blue chakra coalesces around the tightly-clenched fingers. Even so far gone in his madness, the rogue ninja still perfectly controls his chakra with the mindless direction of an automaton.

Fist cocked, the clear victor sends it crashing into the loser's face, releasing the hair at the exact right moment to ensure the maximum degree of whiplash. He feels Sasuke's nose break as the fist skips across an eye socket too small to accommodate it. He _suspects_ he hit his brother hard enough to give him a concussion as well. Sasuke reels, then makes as if to collapse again. Gods, how he wishes he could pass out… but he's not that lucky, evidently.

He could end it now. All he would have to do is draw a kunai across Sasuke's all-too-exposed, all-too-pale throat and call it a day. But he does not. Death would be too good for his foolish little brother, after all the trouble he's caused for Itachi.

But his torment is far from over.

Lunging forward in an obscure style of taijutsu that the Sharingan master knows perfectly, he slams the point of his bent knee into the hunter-nin's sternum. It throws Sasuke like a rag-doll, end over end, for several meters, ending face up.

Itachi is on top of him before he stops rolling. A leg shoots up, freezing for a long moment in Sasuke's field of vision, threatening and promising all in one fluid motion. Then it descends silently, without warning. The heel strikes Sasuke dead amidships, and something soft inside breaks. The force of the blow curls him up around the offending foot for a moment, and then Sasuke goes slack once again. Still he does nothing.

It is this passive resistance that irritates Itachi more than anything else. Amazing as it is, such a simple action as _doing nothing_ sums up Sasuke perfectly. He sits in one place, never moving, never changing but always letting others change him. The growth or loss is never by his own hand, always provoked by another. Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura, Orochimaru, all perpetuators of his rise to the top, but none more important than Itachi.

When he should be fighting, Sasuke meekly lays back and accepts what comes as fate or destiny. The Uchiha were better than that, stronger than that.

And Itachi hits him again, if only to drive that point in just a little deeper. _We are stronger._ And again._ We can overcome anything._ And again.It's funny that Sasuke, so steeped in his own righteous indignation over revenge for the clan, does not understand Itachi's motives. When it should be so _clear_, so maddeningly simple, Sasuke fails to _see_… and Itachi cannot discern why. The lessons are not flawed, and the success of the method is in the archives, so the fault must lay with the student.

He grasps his kid brother by the throat, pulling him from the soft ground and slamming him against the nearest tree trunk ruthlessly. It is of little matter that he carries his brother essentially at arm's length for ten meters before he contacts this tree. Sasuke feels the rough bark break free, splintering in his skin. His older brother has been less than kind to his face, but he's so dazed right now he can't feel the blood run from his mashed lips or broken nose. Head lolling on his neck, Sasuke hangs pinned by the neck to a redwood.

Never being the sort to admire his handiwork, the S-class missing-nin is surprised to find he cannot help but look.

Their faces should be nearly identical, what with the propensity of the Uchiha clan to 'keep it in the family' and the closeness of their countenances at a young age. Sasuke merely lacks the thin lines that run beneath Itachi's high-born cheekbones.

Itachi lacks the broken nose, ruined lips, swollen left eye, gash across his forehead, and bloody crimson patina coating his chin and chest. But everything is relative, he realizes and it is of minimal importance. Sasuke bleeds from a dozen different wounds, both internally and externally, but he has neither passed out from the pain nor collapsed from blood-loss. All of this evidence supports Itachi's suspicions, but does not eliminate the obvious failure that the hunter-nin represents.

In just continuing to breathe, Sasuke makes Itachi a failure. The greatest mistake he ever made. Now having tasted the heights of hubris, enjoyed the forbidden fruit of vainglory, Itachi is older and wiser now. He's twenty-seven, and that's too old to be messing around with Sasuke like two brothers wrestling. Though, he admits, this is hardly play and far from the normal sort of sibling rivalry most children endure.

"Why do you continually disappoint me?" Itachi asks, leaning close to Sasuke's dulled onyx eyes, still seeing the little spark of consciousness hidden in their glossy depths. The question is unimportant. Itachi already knows the answer, just as he always has. Fragile as the flame of hope is, it is all that has kept the elder man pushing the younger one to succeed.

"Weak," he hisses, answering his own question. The truth is a harsh pill for him to swallow, though Sasuke still seems too far gone in the pain to really register the slight. His brother was never capable of following in his footsteps, a flaw either by design of the clan before the massacre or mere Sasuke's misguided attempt at crippling himself to spite Itachi.

He is a great possessor of cruelty, Uchiha Itachi. But it is rational, applied with straightforward logic, and delivered with practical efficacy. His brother is now useless… he bites his lower lip, the only outward sign of his frustration at the admission… _has_ _always been_ useless. And he never saw it before. Sloppy. Careless. If he were still an ANBU, he would have severally dressed-down someone trying to pull that sort of shit in his unit.

The alternative has been progressing nicely, though. His mind skips away from the limp shinobi pinned before him and to another promising candidate. For a moment, the most dangerous man alive considers the ramifications of abandoning his work with Sasuke in favor of his second-string choice. Theoretically, even with a crippled form of the Sharingan, the subject should be capable of providing what Itachi needs. The patterns are all right there, laid out so conveniently in Mangekyou Sharingan construction and, as a whole, chakra theory itself. If he wanted to get _technical_, he didn't even need a Sharingan user for his plans, but they were the easiest for him to manipulate, control, and ultimately, expend. Like attracts like and all.

The loss of time is the most infuriating part. He is a patient man, willing to wait as long as it takes, but that doesn't mean he enjoys every second of not getting what he wants.

On the other hand, Sasuke's reaction should be well-worth the wasted years. Yes. This is a suitable course of action. With the decision made, Itachi turns back to the task in hand.

He forces Sasuke's face up, smearing the sticky, already-drying blood from his brother's chin to his hand. Sasuke weakly attempts to jerk his head from Itachi's grasp because he knows what's coming, but the hold is like iron. Relentless, just like iron. That pleases Itachi on some baser level he does not acknowledge.

"Let me show you something, otouto," their eyes meet and the Mangekyou Sharingan opens fully.

"Tsukiyomi."

Weak as he is, Sasuke finds the strength to cry out.

Weak as he may be, his screams carry for miles.

* * *

"_Hide your wickedness behind closed doors, skulk beneath the earth, even conspire in the land of the dead if you wish – it will avail you not. You may conceal your evil from the light of the Unconquered Sun, but you cannot evade his eyes."  
__- Credo of the Iron Wolves, Night Caste Solar Exalted._

The rain was cold that night, but the four ANBU huddled in a tight circle didn't seem to mind.

One ANBU, wearing a fox mask gestured at a small diagram he was shielding from the wind and rain with his body, "Alright, we know the current location of the target. Neji's isolated them in a small tavern at the other end of town. We're gonna go in fast and hard, so go full stealth until the absolute last moment."

The eagle-masked ANBU nodded shortly, while the dog-masked one chuckled. His ninja-dog ally whined softly, tired of being wet and cold and impatient to get this over with. The hunter-nin said nothing, but Fox didn't expect him to.

"Kiba, you're covering the rear with Akamaru," Dog sighed, not really satisfied with covering the back exit, "I want a body-count of one this time, guys! Neji, you're mobile resource. Move to where you're needed and keep the civilians out of the hands of this bitch. I will be really unhappy if we have a hostage situation on our hands," Eagle nodded again, but crosses his arms. Anyone who knew Eagle casually would say that this was a sign of displeasure. Fox knew better, because Eagle's arms are _always _crossed. His taijutsu style has a beginning stance based around having crossed arms. But in truth, he was irritated at having a supporting role in this fight. It made _sense_ to him, of course, because their team lacked a medic-nin right now, and they were days from the warm welcome of Konoha Hospital. Better that Fox, far and away the most durable member of the team, lead off. Loss leader was an effective technique, especially if the leader was capable of surviving the hit.

Fox gestured to Hunter-nin almost casually. 'Almost' because there was a very short hesitation at the beginning of the motion, something that wouldn't normally be noticed by members of his team. But nothing about this mission was normal, and everyone was on edge.

"Sasuke, you're on Overwatch. I want you in position to watch both exits and the street," their eyeless masks studiously avoided meeting and there was an audible increase in aerial tension, "If you see _anything_ out of ordinary, you break radio silence and report it. Keep your eyes open for any friends our target might have."

Hunter-nin stayed silent, so Fox went on, "Alright, I want everyone in position in two minutes. Until we hit the target, the radio is strictly off-limits."

They stood, solemn in the knowledge that they would soon take another life.

"Anyone have anything to say before we do this thing?" and when no one did, the Fox gestured them away. Eagle and Dog disappeared without a word, content in the knowledge that the mission was almost over. Just this last little stretch and the hunt was complete.

Hunter-nin and Fox were left alone for now.

"Sasuke, do you understand?" Fox asked. When Hunter-nin didn't answer right away, the ANBU commander cut in again, "You understand the plan… right?" The Fox's tone of voice was carefully neutral but the hesitation implies condescension. For the last month of the mission, Hunter-nin and Fox have been at each other's throats night and day.

Hunter-nin stiffened for just a second, but then it was gone. "Hn…" and then he was gone, offering no other explanation or excuse, the word a mere afterthought.

Any scorn inferred was purposeful. The team-leader was tired of sleeping on the cold, hard ground, tired of taking watch, tired of chasing shadows and talking in whispers. He was tired of being responsible for his teammates' lives, tired of flitting from place to place, tired of being unable to sit down and take off his boots. He can't remember the last time he had a good, hot bath or when he sat down at to a warm meal made with a proper kitchen. Those ANBU rations just suck.

But most of all, he's fed up… with Hunter-nin's mask, actually. The problem with every member of the team wearing a mask at every waking moment is never knowing what they're really thinking. Any ANBU worth his salt can mask his voice to make it unreadable, but the true difficulty is masking your facial expressions. Given that Fox has worked with Eagle, Dog, and (as much as he hates admitting it) Hunter-nin for years, he knows their every move, every expression and can picture them in his mind with a startling clarity for a person who cannot even remember what he ate for lunch. They cannot hide their expressions from him at such a critical junction as this, but he's not entirely sure he can handle masks-off.

He is fed up, fed up with feeling eyes across his back whenever he looks away, fed up with noncommittal answers, fed up with that stupid scowl he knows is under that blank mask whenever he gives orders, fed up with that superior smirk that he knows is there whenever Hunter-nin shows him up. He's fed up with the petulant sulking and the borderline-insubordination that Hunter-nin applies to every aspect of this mission.

Fox wants to go home. He misses Konoha, draws his strength from the place and the people therein. He's feeling weak, drained and exhausted, and all he can think about is home. He's been away for so long. In his childhood, how many times had he toddled away from Leaf village for an extended period of time? So many that he has lost count. His memory was never very good anyway.

He misses all his friends, the pseudo-family he's built over the years, protected and cultivated with the same firm and loving hand. But above all, he misses his pink-haired woman.

But she's a touchy subject for Hunter-nin, so Fox makes very, very sure not to mention just how _much_ he misses her because that's not a confrontation he wants to have. Ever.

But even doubly so on a mission. Neither of them need a distraction with an enemy the caliber of ex-Akatsuki on the loose.

He takes a breath. This operation is a minute-thirty in, but Fox doesn't have to be in place for the final second. When he moves, the fight begins. 'First in to the fire, last one to leave' is the first rule of the ANBU captain and one Fox holds very dear to his heart.

Releasing both breath and tension, the blonde man steels his indefatigable supply of nerve and begins to move, quick and quiet in the ways the ANBU have taught him. An invisible streak to all unaided observers, the Fox moves with preternatural deftness, his feet never faltering. Gliding silently through the trees like mist over still water, he is poetry in motion, just like a shinobi should be.

A pair of Sharingan eyes watches him, as they always have. There is no chance the raven-haired Hunter-nin will be spotted, because he's an expert in the ways of stealth and his commander is not actively looking for him. Behind his mask, the handsome face all the ladies fell for was drawn up in a grimace.

"_I know you're not a regular ANBU, so I'll go easy on you, seeing as you're not used to working with a team…" Naruto began,"but if you fuck up and get somebody killed, I'll personally have your ass on a spit. Do you understand me?"_

_He sneered out a 'che' and turned away. But Naruto was not satisfied with that answer._

_Spinning his dark-haired rival around, Naruto began again, a bit more forcefully this time, "Get this straight, Sasuke, I don't care what's going on between us. We're supposed to be professionals. When we're on this mission, I'm the captain and you're my ANBU. You shut up and follow my orders and everything will be alright, you got me?"_

"_Aa," Sasuke ground out, his teeth clenched tightly behind his mask. How dare Naruto pull rank on him like that?_

"_I'm responsible for all your lives," Naruto said, repeating the words Shikamaru had said on that fateful day so long ago, but altered to demonstrate why Uzumaki Naruto was the Commander of the ANBU and no other, "and we're all coming home alive, you understand?" _

"_Clear," Sasuke said, then without waiting for an acknowledgment of his acknowledgment, he returned to surveying his supplies._

_Out of the corner of his eye, he clearly saw Naruto clench his fist and take a half-step toward him before thinking better of it and going off to bother Hyuuga Neji._

Blood leaks from the corner of his mouth, where his lip has been bitten hard enough to bleed. It smears against the inside of his mask where it presses against his chin.

Uchiha Sasuke waits, because he has learned the value of patience. Silence has taught him that much, and he has bowed his head to it and found its wisdom. He will wait for the right time and then make his move. Over the years and the numerous losses he has accumulated against Itachi, Orochimaru, Akatsuki, and Uzumaki Naruto himself, Sasuke has learned to see the weaknesses of combatants, both his own and his enemy's.

Just a little bit longer, and he'll make his move. And when that happens, everything will have been worth it.

* * *

Author's Notes: 

I'll start with a disclaimer, which I don't generally add, but I'm sure you are all familiar with my views on those in general. I think, in this situation, it will help clear up some questions about my feelings on Naruto as a whole.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the ideas/archetypes/characters represented therein. If I _did_ own it, I can tell you that it _would_, over all, make a hell of a lot more sense.

With that out of the way, I will start by saying that some people might have taken offense at the amount of Sasuke-crucifying I've done in this chapter. This is purposeful, though probably influenced by my intense loathing of that bastard. This is now a bon-a-fide AU, so I can do anything I want as long as I stay true to the characters. That's okay, I planned on doing just that. Now, to address the borderline-Sasuke bashing, I'll say that the storyline of the manga is set up perfectly _for _Sasuke-bashing. I'm actually pulling the punches here, people. The only reason the manga doesn't take pot-shots at Sasuke is because instead of making good and proper decisions, the leaders of Konoha village are morons. Every single freaking one of them. So the damn kid can get away with just about anything and never face consequences.

I will say only one thing: ANBU are the true military force of the Leaf, so _where_ the fuck _are_ they? Exactly. I'm glad we see eye-to-eye now.

Others might complain at how long my work is, especially Asinine Rationalizations. You'll notice that this chapter, called 'Intermission A' is longer than the first chapter and is comprised entirely of scenes taken out of context and out of chronological order. This takes some thinking, but if you can watch Pulp Fiction and understand what the hell is going on, I'm sure you'll be able to take a step back and think this through. Should you object to thinking, however, get the hell out and never come back. You will, however, notice that it's called 'Intermission A' and not just 'Intermission.' This is, again, purposeful. I have a lot of ideas and being an engineer by trade, I do not feel right leaving anything half-finished. Every so often, I plan to throw an intermission chapter in, which will provide scenes from the past, hints, clues to the story, and overall build a framework of back-story for the stuff going on in the foreground.

Settle in for the long-haul. I don't expect this to be over before 4-5 more plot chapters and 2-3 more intermissions. That's probably because I'm tired of writing one-shots and posting them separately. I'll just write everything I want to for this continuity and put it all in one place. I'll probably change the title for this fic eventually.

Others might raise objections to the plot. I'll retort by asking what you say about both artistic license and creative freedom. And, we can't forget, the overwhelming evidence that I'm correct. More on that some other time. If you have a valid complaint about it, that's fine. Go ahead and review and make mention of it. I can't say that I'll take your comments into account when I write the next chapter, because honestly, I don't know if I'll give them the time of day. But you will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that you tried.

Still others might complain about the stuff I'm doing with Naruto. I'll shrug and tell you to wait for it, just like everyone else. It's _happening_, and that's all I'll give you.

Lastly, I think I'd like to do something else I've never done before. Add a dedication. It may not have come out exactly as we expected, it may not have come out as you want it, and I'm not sure if it's good enough to warrant a dedication, but here it goes.

The SOC Puppet. For always inquiring into the state of my writing and for never letting me forget to work on this fic, I dedicate this chapter to you. This, of course, does not mean I believe you about the clout thing. But hey, whatever.

Retroactively, I'll dedicate the last chapter to Black, who gave me, by far, the funniest review. How's this for blast? And you'll probably notice that I didn't give any sort of closure on the mission or on Itachi's fight with that Mist-nin. That's alright. I'm letting you imagine those for yourself, so I don't have to write them.

I think that's all for this time. Don't squander your lives… or some such inspirational drivel.


	3. Chapter 2: Iteration

Author's Note on Chronology: Several of these scenes are out of order. For dramatic impact, I've interlaced a few scenes that actually occur several weeks apart. If, while reading this chapter, you question when this is taking place and why these two events seem to be happening simultaneously, remember that they are arranged purposefully. My apologies for any confusion this may cause.

Author's Note on Nomenclature: Someone might ask the question why I have titled this chapter 'Chapter 2' when it is, in fact, chapter 3. All joking aside, this is actually chapter 4, but only the third chapter of present-time narrative. This might cause some confusion and for that I apologize. Now, on with the show.

* * *

Asinine Rationalizations  
Chapter 2: Iteration  
_By Geno Calamari  
Proofreading by Kaverdatie  
Beta-reading by TatsunoHouou, Smiter, Hokuten, Sharingank_

* * *

"The Chuunin exams are being held in two-months time here in Konoha," Tsunade says, watching her two shinobi very carefully, "I want you two to act as official escort for the delegation from Sunagakure." 

The one on the left stirs, wrinkling her nose in distaste before she can control herself, while the one on the right looks about ready to bound out of his chair for his enthusiasm.

Sunagakure means Sand-nin and Chuunin exam means Kage, which means they get to be the Kazekage's whipping boys for an undetermined length of time. Naturally, other ninja would be sent as escorts to other major ninja villages, like Stone, but for some reason the Godaime Hokage likes torturing her biggest admirer. Well, _second_ biggest admirer, as Jiraiya still can't seem to realize that her chest is only genjutsu.

Tenten sighs, no point in pretending that she's going to relish this mission. It's not the travel that irritates her, but the Kazekage herself. _She thinks she's the greatest thing since chai latte, little miss 'Oh look at me, I beat you _once_ in the Chuunin exams over a _decade_ ago, so I'm obviously superior to you in every way.' That bitch probably couldn't blow her way out of a wet paper bag._ Needless to say, the brunette ANBU has major issues with Temari of the Sand and is pretty much a sore loser all around. The next couple of months are going to be keeping track of the Kazekage at all times while she's in the village and trying to address her every complaint while seeing to her needs. _That raging slut will probably be extra aggravating just because she likes picking on me, I can't fucking wait. _Taking the opportunity to glare at the woman who was _once_ her greatest idol, Tenten picks at dirt and oil under her blunt fingernails with the edge of the file-folder in her lap.

Tsunade knows this expression well. Tenten is sulking. She can't rightly refuse this mission, because it might jeopardize her position in the ANBU, but she wants to make her displeasure known. "Well, don't everybody thank me at once," the Hokage grumbles.

About this time, the third occupant of the room loses control of himself. "Thank you so much Hokage-sama!" it seems that he was waiting for the opening, "I will strive to complete this mission with the utmost level of performance you have come to expect from me! May I take along my genin team for the duration?" He is faintly vibrating from enthusiasm now, and Tenten has to bite her lip to keep from sneering at him. Normally, she'd take this behavior in stride, but today she feels as though she's just been kicked in the jaw and is in no mood for his weirdness and shenanigans. If anything, she expected the years and the job to slowly wear away at his goofy exterior and reveal a shy, maladjusted person beneath (somebody she could _fix_ without a great deal of effort.) Sadly for her (and their dating potential,) Rock Lee is just as strange and dynamic as he ever was.

Tsunade nods smartly, as though this were her intention all along, "Permission granted." It was not, but the blonde woman has learned a few things about leadership since her rocky beginning in the Kage business, the most prevalent of them being summarized thusly: Go with the flow. Be adaptable to suggestions from your subordinates. Being thanked for undesirable 'monkey-work' is unusual, but Rock Lee generally does a good job with political and administrative tasks. He's so damn polite and good-natured that he's relatively inoffensive. Other than on the eyes, of course.

Lee's eyes flame up like Karyuu Endan as he imagines the three-day stretch of terrain from Konoha to Suna. In his mind's eye, he is plotting how he can stretch a three-day march into a three-week training session. "YOSH!" he shouts, wheels spinning in his head without really accomplishing anything. Tenten looks like she may never be happy again and is fixing her soon-to-be-partner-in-crime with a jaundiced glare.

All things being equal, Tsunade rather enjoys their reactions. Sure, she's got a great memory, but the look on the brunette's face is just priceless. Every year around this time, she gives these two this mission, just for the sullen glare on Tenten's otherwise determined features.

"Why can't Naruto do it?" Tenten asks, scrunching up her nose, "The Slu-… Kazekage," she corrects herself too slowly to be anything but deliberate, "likes him. Let him play her maid."

Tsunade hesitates just a fraction, "Naruto is out on a highly-classified mission and intelligence is unable to predict when he'll return." In truth, she wasn't prepared for her subordinate to mention that name during this briefing and hasn't created an appropriate response. Shame on her, they go through this same conversation every year. She should know better.

_Okay, that's not the answer I expected_, the brunette thinks for a second and then tries a different strategy, "Then how about Shino? He never speaks, so he'll get along great with Gaara."

Tsunade frowns at her, her notoriously short temper is very close to breaking loose, "You seem to be laboring under the delusion, ANBU, that my decisions are up for discussion, or that we work under some sort of ill-conceived democratic system here in Konoha. We do not. You have your assignments," the Hokage gestures to the folders in their hands, "so go fulfill them to the _best of your abilities_. Am I clear?"

"Yes," Tenten mumbles, still obviously unhappy with the outcome of this meeting. Her arms are crossed over her armor-vest and she is pointedly not looking the Hokage in the eye.

"Yes _what?_" Tsunade growls. Thunder fills the spacious office and the world seems to go ominously dark.

The kunoichi jumps like she's been burned, leaping to her feet and into a rigid attention, like a soldier at inspection, "Yes Hokage-sama!" she shouts, loud and clear and, most importantly, free of any trace of belligerence. The Godaime Hokage smiles knowingly. Tenten tries to keep her expression pleasant but she thinks she rather fails during Tsunade's terse dismissal. They leave, Tenten loping from the room in the wake of Lee's incessant hyperactivity. _Bastard_, she thinks murderously, _it's like he's gotten my share of cheer today. Note to self: Kill Lee._

Between you and the narrator, Tenten's 'share of cheer' is like a drop in the bucket compared to Rock Lee's stash. He raises his fists over his head, basking in the warm glow of Konoha's primary season, summer. The world seems more friendly and wonderful than it had an hour ago. This could not have come a moment sooner, Lee determines, for his precious students are in desperate need of his loving and powerful guidance. It has been a whole two hours since the last time they met and who knows what perils may have befallen them in such a nebulous span of time. Only with iron discipline and Lee's own special combination of Harsh Love (excruciatingly painful training and humiliation) and Youth Power (being really damn enthusiastic about it) can they hope to allow their own Flames of Youth to spread. Too little Flame and they gutter out, too much Flame and they are consumed by their own passions. Such is the danger of youth, he muses.

Rock Lee laughs for the sheer joy of being alive on another perfect morning such as this. He's like a demented cross between Rocky Balboa and a Sand-person. Tenten edges away from him before anyone can see them together. It has been too many years and too many mornings like today for her to put up with this crap before her mid-morning chai. Finally, she's seen what Neji couldn't stand about Lee and Gai-sensei. Unfortunately, she's just received a mission with him, so she's going to be seeing a lot more of it.

"Tenten!" Lee shouts merrily, completely unaware of her dilemma, "Would you do me the honor of joining me for breakfast so that we may discuss the details of our joint venture?" There was a time in her life where that would have been Lee coming on to her, but those days are long gone. As much as she really wants to get away from him, there isn't anything she can do about it and if she refuses, Lee's feelings will be hurt.

He notices her momentary hesitation and turns on his begging expression. Tenten twitches, frightened by the sudden increase in the intensity of his facial expression but then resigns herself to breakfast. Victory: Rock Lee. Before her statement of assent is fully vocalized, Lee has gripped her firmly by the wrist and drags her along at a manic pace only he could find enjoyable. _There is no escape,_ she tells herself.

It comes of no surprise when herself agrees.

* * *

Sasuke pushes open the door to the bar, steps over the threshold, and allows the dark atmosphere to consume and envelop him. Smoke curls in ringlets illuminated by weak halogen lamps, giving the entire establishment a worn, damaged look. The entire place feels mildly threatening, from the old guy watching the entrance to the bartender cleaning glasses with all-too quick motions and an all-too dirty rag. The man at the front acts as a bouncer, and from the way he handles himself, Sasuke knows that he was once a ninja. He nods recognition at Sasuke and makes no attempt to stop him from penetrating deeper into the building. 

On the whole, this place is perfect for the ANBU's unofficial watering hole.

The bartender places another dubiously clean glass behind the counter, out of sight. He knows full well that whenever he pours a drink, it had better be in plain view, or someone might suspect him of tampering. He was once an ANBU as well, but the years were kind to him and he got out while he was still whole and hale. The stylized hedgehog mask still sits next to the register, gathering dust.

The other person at the bar is not so lucky and Sasuke recognizes her immediately. How could he mistake his superior officer?

Murasaki sits at the bar, her posture casual and loose, but that's just another deception Sasuke has learned to see through. She's a frighteningly competent Hunter-nin, so it would be foolish to assume she's ever relaxed. Her long, crimson hair is tied back in the usual fashion and her blank, emotionless mask is clipped to her belt. Sasuke realizes that she has come from ANBU headquarters very recently, probably stopping in to have a drink after work. It is strange that after four years of being a Hunter, he knows functionally nothing about his commanding officer. She's a sort of enigma that way, never talking about her personal life and in a way, that makes her even better at her job, but in another way, it makes her a sad and lonely sort of lady.

He sits down to her left, leaving a space between them as is custom here. She doesn't react to his arrival.

She swishes a tall glass filled with ice and clear liquid. It swirls slowly, lazily and the ice cubes clink against the Collins class. Her hard, viridian eyes are fixed on a knot in the lacquered wood countertop six centimeters from where she clutches her drink with her left hand. Sasuke watches, as inconspicuously as he can, as the woman from which the bartender takes orders loses herself in thought.

She takes a sip and he looks away. Nothing to see here.

After a minute or two of sitting silently, Sasuke becomes aware of the bartender's presence. He's been very studiously avoiding eye-contact, but has been fluttering close to his newest arrival, waiting to take an order. It's not his policy to ask first, because no one ever comes to this bar for the service. They come for the alcohol.

Uchiha Sasuke doesn't have much experience with ordering drinks, so he defaults back to what his father used to drink. "Plum wine," he growls in his own terse manner.

The bartender nods but does not allow his steel-blue eyes to drift from Murasaki. It takes very little effort for Sasuke to recognize the concern in his eyes, as piercing and dangerous as they are. With calm, practiced, economical motions, the bartender flips a snifter out with his left hand, then pours the bottle right-handed. The neck of the bottle crosses with his left forearm and he uses it as a guide for pouring. It is very much like an opening kenjutsu stance and Sasuke dimly remembers the bartender is a Taira. That makes sense and the raven-haired Uchiha makes no more mention of it.

"How's Ayano?" the bartender asks abruptly and not to the newcomer. There's a loaded question if Sasuke's ever heard one. Designed specifically to provoke conversation, the bartender has asked a question with the full intent of taking the round-about way to the point.

"She's fine," the red-haired woman replies, "She keeps asking me when you're going to visit again." Countered and returned. Such is the way of verbal battles.

It was obviously not what the short-haired man expected because he fumbles and gestures uselessly for a few moments before marshalling himself, "Yeah… well, you know how it is. I'm busy and all…"

This is not the response she wants, because a small frown creases the corners of her generous mouth, "You wouldn't want me to tell her that you don't _want_ to see her, do you? Because I'm sure that would just break her little heart and leave her devastated and she'll cry all night, and you don't want that, now do you?"

"You don't have to lay it on so thick, you know?" he mumbles, begrudging her very existence at this moment. The Murasaki guilt-trip is an awesomely powerful technique that even an Uchiha cannot copy. Sasuke, only half-listening, is very happy that he's never been subjected to such an awful jutsu. He has seen the effects of it in action, and it never ceases to amaze him how well it works. Probably because Murasaki is a mother, so she's had plenty of practice with which to perfect her ultimate attack. Just follow her orders and nobody gets hurt...

"So can I expect you to take care of her when I'm out on a mission next week?" the green-eyed lady fishes and her hook finds purchase.

"Yeah," the bartender chuckles, "I'll take care of her while you're gone," he suddenly gets over the novelty of _him_ watching a kid, even if it is a well-behaved eleven-year-old girl, and his face clouds up like a sudden storm in Grass Country, "but only _this _time."

He says it in that tone of voice that brooks no argument. She quirks a funny little smile, to indicate that she's playing along, and nods in agreement. Both of them know that there will always be a 'next time,' despite his vehement protestation. Not every ANBU is lucky enough to get out and the pay's just not good enough to make any long-term savings possible.

It's just that the idol worship of a little girl makes the bartender uncomfortable. He's one of her mother's contemporaries, her mother's last true-blue teammate, and that makes him something special, because she wants to grow up to be just like her mother. Kids are funny that way.

Sasuke takes a sip of his plum wine, enjoying the body of the alcohol, although he doesn't drink anything else, and therefore he has no basis of comparison. It's strong and slightly sweet, showing a deep lavender color that grape-based wines from north Fire Country do not have. Had life turned out differently, Sasuke might have been taught to savor it. As it is, he drinks it without thought of the rich flavor or the heady bouquet, but because it's the only thing he can remember his father drinking, and no one else drinks plum wine in this bar, so it's a mark of distinction. Pretense of Nobility and Sophistication. If anything, Sasuke really needs something to buoy his rapidly sinking ego these days.

Murasaki considers her glass. "I have a mission for you," she blurts out, monotone in this highly-inappropriate venue. Her posture has changed with such rapidity that Sasuke, watching out of the corner of his vision, did not catch the movement. The bartender steps away, ducking his head and rapidly pouring another alcoholic concoction for someone seated in the corner. His place in the conversation has been made obsolete and the fair haired man struggles to find something to do so as to at least give the appearance of inconspicuousness. It doesn't work very well and Sasuke cannot help but wonder how this man ever became an ANBU.

"Hn," he responds when he notices that Murasaki is holding for an acknowledgement. It is short, terse, and to-the-point, just like everything about him. Other Hunter-nin might have been irritated by her mention of work in a very off-duty location, given that their one job is to hunt and kill other ninja,but not Uchiha Sasuke. He is always business, always professional, and that's something she admires about him. At the merest notice, he is ready for an assignment.

"Yesterday, I received a personnel request from ANBU headquarters," she takes another long sip of her drink, "A single Hunter-nin for an assassination mission that leaves tomorrow."

Without hesitation, he asks, "Who's the target?"

"Ex-Akatsuki," Murasaki answers. Sasuke has to physically restrain himself from puffing out his chest with pride. Out of all the Hunter-nin, she has chosen him for this assignment. By all rights, that means that he is the most qualified member of the Hunter-nin to deal with the target, and such a dangerous and elusive target can only mean one thing: That his superior recognizes his obvious skill.

She frowns. Sasuke is losing himself in a world of stale ambition and ignorance, so she decides to give him a little piece of the puzzle.

"You are not allowed to refuse this mission."

He looks at her, truly looking her in the eyes for the first time tonight, and Murasaki can clearly read 'Why would I want to?' in them. It takes but a moment longer, and then the suspicion makes a showing.

"Why?" he asks, eyes narrowing slightly. He's finally caught on that something is wrong with this set-up.

"Because your presence is required for the success of the mission," his superior drinks delicately, considering her next words carefully, "That's all I know for certain. The mission details are classified eyes-only for team members, so I'm only playing the messenger here." Which is mostly true, but as the Hunter-nin commander, she has the authority to read all mission briefings and can hand-pick personnel for each criminal and missing-nin contract. She knows the contents of this team and she knows that come Wednesday, this mission will be the major gossip at HQ.

Sasuke nods, not privy to the truth of the matter as it plays in her head. He drinks a finger of the dark liquor in one gulp. Somewhere underneath it all, there is a thirst to prove himself, a desire that even his jaded cynicism and years of solitary confinement haven't diminished. The pit of his stomach twists in a feeling he associates with anticipation. _I will kill this Akatsuki and show them. I will show them all._

"Uchiha?" the crimson woman cuts across his train of thought like a kunai through soft flesh, "Try to come back in one piece, will you?" Uchiha Sasuke frequently suffers injuries in his line of work, a side-effect of his overconfidence and impatience in battle. All the years since have not knocked these habits from him. But he almost always succeeds, even with the injuries and so forth. He's ruthless, cold, and unyielding when it comes to the objective.

"Something about this mission is unusual," she murmurs, each word like a delicate bubble in the gloomy air, "Keep your eyes open and your head down, got it?" For the first time tonight, Murasaki turns her head his way and gives him a look that clearly shows she's worried.

He nods. It is unlike Murasaki to show so much concern for his welfare, but he figures that even the most hardnosed leader unwinds with the help of alcohol. Her glass is almost empty now and the bartender offers her another. She declines, drawing her attention away from Sasuke and back to her old friend. Just like that, Sasuke knows that their informal briefing is over. That's the way he likes it. Murasaki doesn't waste any breath on useless words, cutting to the heart of the matter right away. She's a good commander, and the Hunter-nin are lucky to have her watching out for them. Sasuke considers that, just maybe, somehow, he respects her.

Murasaki and the bartender examine each other for a while, and Sasuke takes them in with a glance. They're a mismatched pair. He's tall, lean, and plain in an unassuming way with short brown hair and keen blue eyes. She's slim, pale, with fire-red hair that falls in ringlets past her shoulder-blades and bottle-green eyes. They look at one another and their eyes do not meet, giving the impression that they do not really see one another. They do not smile, as is their policy, and it suits neither of them. Either of them would be attractive if they were to smile.

"I'll pay you for the water," she says and he waves her off, because he never makes her pay no matter what she orders. She's long-since learned not to insist… and since she never drinks anything but water, it hardly matters.

She leaves. They don't say goodbye, yet another unspoken policy they share. Old Team Four, never give up, never say goodbye, never say die, and always stick together. He watches her go, and when she's out of sight he removes her empty glass from the lacquered countertop.

Sasuke asks for another, drinking slowly and keeping his mind purposefully blank. He doesn't want to think about the implications of his impending mission tomorrow. He doesn't want to think about why he can't refuse the mission, despite the fact he already knows. Naruto's going to be on that mission, and he tries his best not to think about him.

And fails. It's never far from his mind. Just as his dead brother used to consume his thoughts, so now does Naruto. And Sakura… her betrayal. He hates Sakura, she promised to wait for him… she swore she loved him… and now he finds that she went to Naruto first? Untrustworthy, he snarls to himself. No, he amends, just unworthy…

Yamanaka Ino walks in, calmly sits at the bar next to him, and proceeds to strike up conversation. Sasuke eyes her, examines the way she's filled out and grown since she used to be a girl fawning at his feet. They talk for many drinks, by the end she is laughing all over herself.

Sasuke takes a moment to examine her, stepping back from his drunken stupor. She's very beautiful and he finds her smile appealing in a manner he cannot describe. There's something about her that he cannot put his finger on, something that eludes the clumsy grasp of his addled mind. Perhaps it's the way her glossy pink lips pout with every word she says. Maybe it's that she's managed to get him to drink enough to loosen his tongue, but doesn't want to know about Sakura or their relationship or when they're going to tie the knot. Questions like that have become increasingly and alarmingly frequent, and Sasuke just doesn't have the answers.

Did he want to marry Sakura? It was a goal, a means to an end. If he married her, then he could continue the second part of his ambition. Found the beginnings of a brand-new Uchiha dynasty and reclaim the glory of his now-tarnished clan's birthright. But… would he really have _married_ her?

Yes. Eventually. Sasuke is not a man used to sharing any facet of his time. The concept of being beholden to another living being is strange to him. Discussing a purchase with the significant other? Enjoying an evening on the town, just the two of us? Talking through relationship difficulties? Presents? Birthdays? _Anniversaries?_ All of these are foreign to him, a man who has lived his entire life by his own rules and on his own terms. He's never once had to compromise his ideals or goals just because someone disagrees with him. A spouse… is a responsibility on a whole other level, one that he's not sure he is ready to accept. That's just the way it is. For most men, commitment frightens them, the loss of control in their lives, the concept of changing their entire lifestyle. If he's comfortable the way he is, then having someone waltz in and reorder all his habits and priorities is worrisome.

No, commitment terrifies him, because for him it seems like shackles. Objectively, he knows that's not true. But he's also a Hunter-nin and he knows that any mission could be his last. This is a generalization for the benefit of anyone who might be reading his mind. All false modesty aside, Uchiha Sasuke has about as much chance of being cut down by a missing-nin as Nara Shikamaru has of bleeding of death from paper-cuts.

Talking to Ino is not hard. She's personable, charming, and very easy on the eyes. Their conversation meanders, wandering to safe topics like 'How's work?' and 'What are you doing on your next recuperation period?' Both are familiar and Sasuke doesn't have any real reason not to answer her questions, then he adeptly turns the words about. She speaks in great length about a new technique she's going to try to master the very next Thursday. From what he understands of it, the technique uses her ever-quirky bloodline-limit and does… something… she's giggling a lot and stumbling over the word 'paranoia.'

Were it any other day, Sasuke might have been irritated by her high-pitched laughter. But she's found something funny and is not stopping readily; he's had a bad day, a few too many, and he's bone-deep exhausted. He laughs along with her, only partially grasping what was funny. You had to be there and sloshed to get it.

"You're not so bad when you're drunk," she says when the laughter finally subsides.

"You're not so bad when I'm drunk, either," he shoots back, a little quicker than was necessary, but the reply is fast enough for her to catch that it's a joke. Probably… he doesn't know… his head hurts. The blonde is staring at him with a shocked look on her face, half because such a statement is inappropriate and half because she's sure he's joking and Uchiha Sasuke doesn't joke. Then it melts into a genuine smile and her clear laughter rings in his ears again.

They share a moment of laughter and just for a little bit, Uchiha Sasuke forgets his troubles. He forgets that he's supposed to be wounded and angry, that he came here to get drunk and quietly brood, that he'll probably never complete his goal now, and that he's just off the cusp of his first, real break-up. Although he's suffered none of the poignant emotional trauma that most people endure on their first (more than likely because he didn't actually _love_ her,) he's definitely taken a hit. The overweening pride he carries around like a shield is broken and the cloak of arrogance that is his armor is slipping.

"How's Sakura?" Ino asks. Her seemingly-innocent question lances open a gash Sasuke had just finished dousing with alcohol to sterilize. Then again, Ino's far from innocent. In actuality, she knows exactly what her question does to him, can see the words take root and the pain blossom in his eyes. It's less than she expects to see, but then the Yamanaka woman always knew that Sasuke didn't love Sakura.

This is look is more like betrayal, though whether it's aimed at Sakura for obvious reasons or at Ino herself for taking the conversation out of friendly waters, she doesn't know.

"I don't know," Sasuke answers truthfully, "I haven't seen her for a few days."

Ino knows as much, but she plays along for the sake of hearing it directly from the horse's mouth, "She have a mission?" And the knife twists deeper.

He holds back a wince and keeps his voice even, "We broke up." The words sound strange coming from his lips, but as it is the truth he figures that it's not that strange… he has always maintained at least some modicum of honesty in his life. His chest tightens uncomfortably with the words and his fist clenches against his pant leg. Impotent and useless as the gesture is, it sums his reaction up perfectly. Let her go. If fidelity is too difficult a concept for her to grasp, then she's not worth the effort.

Just like that, Sasuke has convinced himself that everything is fine once more. His inner turmoil calms, all that bottled up anger is forced down.

She's aware of his confliction he realizes. The way she watches his eyes, so boldly staring into the depths of his pupils. Her keen sapphire eyes take in the subtle half-gestures his hands start and abort. The minute shifting of his shoulders, every detail is observed and stored for later use. Yamanaka Ino is an infiltration specialist. Her unique talents and impressively disarming physical assets allow her to close with less difficulty than other kunoichi might have. In her life, she's taken the ANBU training, understanding the mindset of a murderer, criminal, or enemy from mere forensic evidence or circumstantial evidence is her specialist skill. She gets inside the heads of her targets, slowly but surely monitoring the actions of a subject to build a complete understanding of the way they think.

Ino is an ANBU profiler, one of a select few members that interpret the possible meaning of intelligence data gathered by informants or field agents. Shikamaru may be an Intelligence guru, but all he does is manipulate probabilities and draw plausible consequences on a larger scale. Profilers work on a much more personal level, creating what amount to personality 'mock-ups' of famous missing-nin, evaluate the mission-readiness of teams, and perform emotional and mental stability assessment for ANBU. They're the social counterpart to Intelligence's numerical or political aspect. They cut to the 'why' of the problem, instead of the 'when,' 'who,' 'where,' and 'how.'

Where other ANBU work in shadows, Ino walks into the bar, the office, the theater and proceeds to draw attention to herself. She's very good at maintaining a conversation, but Sasuke's not being unreceptive to idle chat, surprisingly enough, so she's having an easy time of it tonight.

Sasuke's a Hunter-nin. He's used to following a target for weeks, the inevitable conflict, and the eventual bloody conclusion. Chase, catch, kill. The Hunter-nin is the profession he was born for, bred for, and trained for all his life, albeit unknowingly. But being socially adept is not one of his job-requirements, so all this careful connecting the dots goes over his head. The alcohol doesn't help, for what it's worth.

He's been silent for a few minutes now. Ino hesitates, because he's a damn hard read when he wants to be and Sasuke is putting almost all of his willpower into holding back anything that might give him away. Her observations are mixed and incoherent and learning anything more aggressively would require invasive genjutsu that would be detected easily by an Uchiha. Hunter-nin are annoyingly alert most of the time.

"Let's talk about something else," she demurs, though it's a completely hollow statement. Conversational feints are useful, especially when she's employing reverse psychology. When displaying the proper amount of chagrin, the subject will almost always be compelled to ignore their reticence. The only problem is that everyone has a different level of tolerance for compulsion, and Uchiha Sasuke probably less-so, so Ino goes with 'bashful and awkwardly strained half-chuckle' followed by a 'pronounced lack of eye-contact' and 'obviously fake smile.'

Sasuke dutifully picks up the clues she hands out, squares his jaw, takes a fortifying slug of his wine, and says, "No, it's alright." The blonde woman holds back a grin, knowing she's got him now.

Over the years, Uchiha Sasuke has never once said the words 'No, it's alright' and meant it. Naruto once broke Sasuke's finger during a training accident and kept apologizing endlessly, until Sasuke had growled out the phrase to shut him up. Last year, Sakura dropped a plate that had been given to his parents on the day they were married and it shattered like so many of his memories. For days, she had been touchy and nervous around him, for fear that he might snap at her over a broken plate. Objects long since stopped having significance to him, as he's now spent more years of his life without his parents than with. As ridiculous as her behavior was, the broken dog act was possibly the most irritating display of obsequiousness he had ever witnessed. Only when he used that phrase combined with a small smirk did she begin to look him in the eyes again.

Although, now that he puts some thought into it, after a few days she was probably more afraid of the way her simpering demeanor made him act, but didn't comprehend enough to discern the truth. For as smart as Sakura comports herself to be, the woman could be oblivious at times.

"We've decided to separate due to irreconcilable differences," he says in his most authoritative tone of voice, like he's reading a weather report. It's a true statement, but even he acknowledges that it's a gentle euphemism for the conditions of their break-up. Irreconcilable differences means, 'She likes sleeping with Naruto and I don't like her sleeping with Naruto. Therefore, we have a difference of opinion that jeopardizes our relationship.' It doesn't quite do justice to the amount of shouting partaken by both of the individuals in question.

After a few moments, she realizes he's not going to say anything more and responds, "Ah," which is both the most unhelpfully vague statement and the most subtle prompt she can come up with on short notice.

He takes another sip of his wine and Ino cannot help but notice that he holds the bulb of the snifter against the palm of his hand, allowing the warmth of his skin to seep through the thin crystal and heat the purple liquor. He drinks in small sips, allowing himself to savor, but the movements are slow and lack the fluid grace of a natural connoisseur. At some point in his life, he's seen someone drink in this particular manner and has attempted to copy the style. However, he doesn't know why he drinks in this fashion, only that it's the thing to do when drinking plum wine. It strikes her like an epiphany that he's just going through the motions uselessly and her mind leaps to the conclusion that he derives no enjoyment from the act, but a sense of fulfillment or obligation. So interesting, she decides.

"I don't trust her," Sasuke mutters suddenly.

That raises an eyebrow, because Ino doesn't know if that comment was meant for her ears or accidentally exclaimed. It doesn't surprise her in the least, because she's had the story from Sakura and the roseate woman said much the same thing, but that he might tell her so is odd. She blames the alcohol. He's been here longer than she has and plum wine is stronger than her beer. Speaking of which… she orders another. The bartender is very careful to keep his razor-sharp blue eyes above neckline when he passes her another bottle. It's pathetically obvious that he wants to look, but why he doesn't is a mystery to her… perhaps some… the blonde woman cuts off that line of thinking quickly, realizing her musings have distracted her from the original objective. Sasuke.

They talk over alcohol, as handsome people in movies tend to do. Once or twice, they lapse into companionable silence after a line of discussion has run to completion. Sasuke talks less than she does, but he seems genuinely interested in offering his opinion. She does not make mention of Sakura any more, because as much as she is Sakura's best friend, she knows all the secrets and the rational, pragmatic part of her agrees with Sasuke. _Yes, you shouldn't trust her, Sasuke-san. It's a dangerous proposition._

Time passes. By the end of their conversation, Ino has gotten herself thoroughly soused. When she realizes that they are laughing about something she cannot remember, the blonde realizes that it is time to go. Having a few too many has done terrible things to her balance and coordination, making her stumble as she attempts to get to her feet. Sasuke does not attempt to arrest her fall, so she grasps his shoulder for balance. There's stability there, and the Uchiha progeny holds his shoulders very still until her hand removes itself. This is very uncomfortable for him, as she's touching him in a manner more intimate than his alcohol-blasted mind can handle and he's not positive how he'll react if the contact is continued for any duration.

For her, it's like a bolt of heat shoots through her arm. His body is warm underneath his blue shirt, the power he possesses whirling like a current just beneath his skin. He stiffens at the pressure, unsubtle and crude, he's supporting almost her full weight as she stands. There is something intoxicating about him, although it could just be the booze. She doesn't know and removes her hand.

"It's late. I had better go," she says, and he nods. It is late, there is no denying this, and he has a mission tomorrow. He watches as she draws herself up, gives her long platinum hair a shake to settle it properly, and then favors him with a small smile, perhaps the first truly innocent smile he's received in a long time.

There it is again, the indefinable quality Ino possesses that intrigues him. Every so often he sees flits and shadows of it, but he cannot piece together what it is for the life of him. In the beginning, he had wondered with a passion that almost made it hope he would come to figure it out just by conversing with her, so he entertained her curiosity. As the conversation lengthened and began to wander into topics that were neither safe nor neutral, he came upon the discovery that she was manipulating him. It was almost offensive, in and of itself, but then a sudden, irrepressible curiosity of his own smothered any desire to end it. He felt compelled to discern her objective, and if he knew she was pulling strings, then he would be far better prepared for any tricks she might pull and then she'd be left exposed, right where he wanted.

As if he knew where that were…

She saunters out, her hips swaying sensually. A quick check from the corner of his eye shows that he's not the only man in this smoky, little bar that's watching. Though he's watching for entirely different reasons than every other man, he tells himself. Sasuke is not watching her because she's an attractive, vibrant young woman who has a reputation for being sexually aloof and somewhat less-than-picky. He's watching her because she tried to manipulate him into revealing some deep secret of his and it worked.

Flame take him, that's Sakura's best friend. This will precipitate an awkward situation and most likely another conflict with that hard-headed imbecile. He pushes away his plum wine, disgusted at himself for slipping so grievously. Such an error is completely unbecoming of a shinobi of his station. Compassion is a luxury one in his line of work cannot afford.

"Excuse me," the bartender interrupts, brandishing a slip of paper like a senbon, "I hope you're picking up the lady's tab."

_She left me with the check,_ scowling, Sasuke tears the bill from the bartenders outstretched fingers, examining it with a bleary and critical eye. Everything is in order and he can remember each of the listed items. He's not being cheated, but he's still angry and must mentally restrain himself from severing the bartender's fingers in his fury. That's the last straw and his fragile patience snaps.

Sasuke stands, throwing down just enough money to cover the cost of the drinks. The bartender busies himself with taking away their used glasses, carefully avoiding the eyes of the Uchiha as he gathers himself to leave. He has business to settle and he doesn't have time to waste if he's going to get it done without any breaking and entering tonight.

Chase. Catch. Kill.

He leaves without a word, and it is only after a few minutes that the bartender counts the money left behind.

"No tip."

* * *

Ino presses the key into the lock on the door to her apartment, twists, and hears the bolts slid out of place. It's been a five-minute walk from the bar, although it would have taken less time for her to cross the district from the air, she was uncomfortable with the prospect of leaping from branch to rooftop to ledge in the dark while intoxicated. Ninja still take falling-damage, after all. 

Her thoughts turn inward as she stares into the solid oak of her door. Sasuke was almost… almost _nice_ tonight. His guard must have been completely down in order for her to slip in so easily. She hadn't expected to get anything out of him, much less an admission of distrust. Now that she thinks about it, Sasuke is right _not_ to trust the pink-haired Haruno. Ino's not the sort to lecture about fidelity or honesty, because she has no experience with the first and the second is mutually exclusive with her job description, but if Sakura wishes to pursue a stable, viable relationship with either man, she cannot have them thinking she'll run off into the other's arms at the drop of a hat. The suspicion alone will make them kill one another, and then the whole situation will become a big fiasco.

She almost doesn't hear the sound of feet dropping onto the landing behind her. It's only at the sound of her name that Ino realizes someone is standing behind her. Whirling on the spot, her hand halfway to the kunai pouch strapped to her thigh, she sees the vague outline of a man standing just outside the reach of the overhead light.

With an uneven step, he lurches forward into the light. His jet-black hair just from his head like solid shadows capping a thin, handsome face with a straight nose and dark eyes. His lips are pressed together in a smirking frown that is half-disapproving and half-amused. It is Uchiha Sasuke and Ino thinks there can only be one reason why he is here. Alright, so she led him on and it isn't like she hasn't been the rebound girl before. But this is Sakura's ex, and can she really do that to her best friend?

Then his hand shoots up in the gulf between them and grasped tightly between the index and middle finger is a small strip of white paper. He holds it out to her, his silent countenance indicating that she should take it from him. Smoothing over her nervous twitters, the blonde ANBU takes the slip from his outstretched hand and reads it quietly.

"This is the bill for my drinks…" she mumbles aloud, her frazzled mind fumbling the concept and meaning like a Genin trying to catch shuriken with oven mitts on. Her blue eyes dart up to his face and notice the smirk is gone completely now. He's staring at her intently, either waiting for a response or further provocation or something. She doesn't know. Off-guard and out-of-breath, she can only notice how emotionless he makes his face become as he stares into her eyes. It makes her feel very self-conscious, but the defiant part of her doesn't give him the satisfaction of knowing he's won by looking away.

A thought occurs to her… _is he _teasing_ me?_

Her mouth is hanging open slightly and Sasuke wonders if she knows this. He figures not, seeing as she's staring at him like he's grown a third head, which is odd because he isn't sure he'd grown a second one yet. Then her mouth shuts, giving a decent imitation of a bear-trap. This thought is funny to him for some unfathomable reason and forces a soft chuckle past his lips.

She hears, despite wishing that she hadn't, and can only think _He _is_ teasing me!_ Her glare sears him, a look practiced long and hard on everyone she's ever met.

There it is again, that flash of something that piques his interest. Something in the deadly look she shoots him is appealing. He takes a step forward, into arm's reach and watches the glare intensify a hundred-fold. _Interesting_. Another step forward and he straightens his back, looming over the shorter kunoichi. He watches her crimson lips part, a delicate pink tongue darting out to wet suddenly dry lips. For a moment, he considers what he's doing here, in this place, at this time, and begins to reconsider his course of action. Then he realizes that he _doesn't have_ a course of action and lunges, taking it as enough of an invitation.

Ino's eyes shoot open as Sasuke presses his mouth against her own in a cleverly executed maneuver that quite conveniently keeps her from saying whatever recriminations she would have spouted. The blonde woman doesn't react at first, somewhat shocked at this turn of events, but not truly surprised. In fact, Ino's not feeling too terrible about this and when Sasuke's tongue brushes against her lips, she's not revolted at all.

So she kisses back. It's not like it's anything harmless, after all. One tiny kiss. What damage could it do, honestly? Besides, he's not all that bad at it. He's not best she's ever had, of course, but then she's had quite a selection and Genma's really, really good at what he does and more than a decade Sasuke's senior. It's not fair to compare them; their experiences are far from equal, she thinks.

And Sasuke's spent all this time kissing Sakura, that's got to damage… _something_, Ino surmises. Normally, by this time Ino would have drawn him into her arms and pulled him close, but her hands are quite conveniently pinned beside her ears and he's already close enough for her to catch his body-heat.

Body heat… huh, she's heard the rumor that Uchiha had above-average body temperatures, something about their affinity to fire increasing – _oh look, he's breaking for air now. That's an interesting look, is that curiousity? Here he comes again_ – metabolic… rates… or what… ever… _he's certainly enthusiastic_. Idly, Ino wonders if his Sharingan copied the right way to kiss or if he's figured out on his _own_ that he had been doing it all wrong before tonight. Whenever the topic of Sasuke and his romantic and sexual abilities have come up in conversation, Sakura bites the inside of her cheek and mumbles something generally positively but not stellar about the way he kisses and says that they've never done _it_, so she couldn't possibly know. The way Sasuke's attacking her mouth, it seems like he's got some innate talent for this sort of thing, just like everything else.

"Open door," she gasps out when he breaks again, because the dark-haired hunter is showing no signs of interest in doing any less than ravishing her mouth her on the porch where anyone can see, "Go inside." He nods curtly and pins both of her wrists with one hand above her head, leaving his left hand free to pull open the heavy door without sacrificing his position of power.

The door falls away behind her and Ino purposefully twists her ankles together, losing her balance as Sasuke pushes her over the threshold backward. Allowing herself to go limp, she simply collapses softly to the carpet, her wrists slipping from Sasuke's grip so easily it might have been accidental. But that's the point and now she has her control back, even if she is splayed on the floor like a felled tree.

Sasuke watches her confused. Certainly she doesn't want it _here_, although Ino's somewhat of a quandary in his mind. His instincts spark as hungry eyes rove her chest, panting heavily in the post-make-out bliss. Something about her, something about the way she's laying waiting for him, something something _something!_ There it is again, elusive as ever, and he spends a loose second to consider that he's probably too drunk to truly figure out what it is about Ino that's so alluring.

But he is _not_ too drunk to continue and follows her to the floor.

For what seems like months, but is actually closer to a handful of hours, Ino and Sasuke fuck. It cannot be called anything else, as neither of them have the slightest illusion about what is happening or where this night is going. Sasuke starts kissing her again and she pulls his high-collared shirt over his head, which makes him retaliate by removing her soft plum skirt (when he gets his arms free, of course. Ino doesn't let those go without a fight.) It takes a little while, but she manages to get off those pants of his and he manages to lay her out on the bed.

Sasuke is silently aggressive the whole time. They twist and dance, fighting in a relatively uncoordinated and playful manner, but in the end, Sasuke is the one in control. He takes and enjoys and Ino allows him this freedom. She doesn't mind submission, not when her partner is being this enthusiastic. There's no pride issue on the line here, she doesn't have anything to prove to Sasuke. It's a chance meeting in the night, most likely a one-night stand that will never be repeated. For Sasuke, however, this is an expression of freedom. He is fucking Sakura's best friend. Effectively, he's cheating on her in the same way she cheated on him. This is punishment, revenge, and justice for him… kind of, as it's all backwards and thinking about it makes his head hurt. He's doing this because he _wants_ Ino, not because he _needs_ her, unlike with Sakura.

And Ino is radically different from Sakura. She's loud and vocal about what she wants and what she needs. This is because she's used to having a medley of different partners, very few of them repeats, all of whom need to be informed and reminded of her specific tastes. Ino's not into anything weird, thankfully, but she is certainly more liberal about sex. Sasuke had never done it like _that_ before, for sure. Hell, he wasn't even sure it _could_ be done like that. He heard guys tell stories, naturally, but when it came time to put it there, Sasuke didn't believe it would fit. It did.

The blonde woman whispers naughty words in his ear, flicks her tongue into the hollow of his throat, and does a thousand other little things Sakura never did. She's something else, he decides as he pounds her mercilessly, watching her head loll against the pillow. Her fingernails, which are surprisingly long for a ninja, rake furrows down his back and he growls against the shell of her ear.

Time passes, her hips shift, change the angle, and then it was over. Gasping for air, they collapse against the sweat-soaked linen. He clutches at her sensuous curves with an intensity he cannot fathom, as though letting go would wash him away_. It's part of the afterglow_, he reasons, though he doesn't remember clinging to Sakura like this.

Sasuke relaxes against her, nestling his head between her voluptuous breasts. Her fingers stroke his wild raven hair, helping him settle down to sleep. No words are said, because the Uchiha progeny doesn't need to ask to know she's satisfied. That sort of enthusiasm can't be faked, her glazed eyes and unfocused smile are genuine. _She isn't anything like Sakura_, Sasuke thinks. This was his initiative. Sakura was giving in to what he knew he _had_ to do.

And suddenly, he understands. It is precisely because she _isn't_ Sakura that he finds her so appealing. _That_ is the indefinable quality she possesses, that makes itself known in her insignificant actions and the words in between the most important ones. She's different, better perhaps. Sakura is fine, Sasuke guesses, but she isn't right. However, with Ino there is still a sort of familiarity. She and Sakura share a good deal of their mannerisms, so it's not difficult for him to adapt. He's trading in for a better model, really.

_What a better model it is,_ he smirks, content in the catch he's made tonight. But before he can consider the implications of his revelation, sleep sneaks up and smothers him in dreams. The Uchiha smirk of his fades into something softer and more natural as he falls asleep. Ino listens to his breathing deepen and slow, knowing that he is truly unconscious now, and plans her next move. She could leave now, but that would probably cause Sasuke to awaken and that would provoke the conversation she prefers to avoid in these situations.

_Well, Sasuke _does_ look comfortable…_ she thinks, _I'll leave in the morning before he wakes._ Decided, Ino closes her eyes and continues to stroke Sasuke's hair until she too falls asleep.

They escape the usual nightmares tonight.

* * *

Kazoku sighs. It has been a very, very long day of walking, walking, and more walking. His feet hurt, he hasn't taken a bath in three days, and every single inch of him is covered in sweat-adhered sand. God forbid they stop, or leap through the trees like _real_ ninja or something. Anything to make this death-march go faster. But _no_, they can't use chakra to propel themselves, for fear of giving away their position. 

"Giving away our position," Kazoku sneers for the third time this hour, "That's a bunch of—" he says a word that makes Tanrei blush and sputter admonishments in his direction. As per usual, Hiroshi does not say a word. "Give away our position to _who_?" Kazoku growls.

"Whom," Hiroshi corrects. Both of his teammates get the distinct impression he is not watching them behind his glasses.

"What_ever_," Kazoku sighs, tired of always being corrected by his overly-silent, hypercritical ally. _Damn stupid Aburame_, _always think they've got the high ground…_ "Who could possibly mess with us?" His hand whips out to point at a cluster of figures walking ahead of them. There are four people, two female, two male.

Without preamble, Kazoku points to the shorter woman, the one with long, wild blonde hair tied back at the nape of her neck. She's wearing a white formal kimono and carrying a large dancing fan and an equally oversized scroll. "You see her?" he asks. Before either of his teammates can answer, he forges ahead, "They call her 'Kazekage-sama,' so she's like the most powerful ninja in all of Hidden Sand, right? Nobody in their right mind is gonna start something with her around."

"She's really young-looking!" Tanrei effervesces, "I bet she's around Sensei's age."

"Ask, why don't ya?" Kazoku mumbles, irritated that she isn't paying attention to him anymore. It's just like Tanrei to go seeking new idols. "As I was saying," he clears his throat importantly, "See the guy next to her with red hair? I hear he's some sort of demon or something. Didja see that Kanji tattooed on his forehead? I heard it was done in _blood._ Never speaks," he taps his chin with his forefinger, "Although he might be shy or trying to look macho or something, he's not very tall…" he swears again, "I don't really know. Either way, Sensei seems to get along great with him."

"Maybe she's got some cool bloodline limit, though I can't imagine how someone so young became a Kage," she whispers, now completely ignoring the whining boy next to her, "She must be a genius!" Tanrei decides in an authoritative tone of voice, as though by saying such a thing it becomes truth.

"And then there's Sensei. Well… he's just…" Kazoku fumbles for a moment, looking for a word to describe their be-browed Jounin protector, "he's Sensei!"

"Articulate, Kazoku," Hiroshi deadpans.

"Bite me, bug-eyes." Behind his collar, the young Aburame starts. Something about that insult has always struck beneath his defenses.

Tanrei buries her face in her hands, "I'll never look that good!" she moans and stares at the Kazekage with a look that borders on reverent worship, "Not when I'm stuck wearing this… this… THIS FASHION _CATASTROPHE_!"

"This suit has incredible heat-dissipation, superior elasticity, and is completely waterproof," the Aburame adds in a manner he believes is helpful. Tanrei lets out a muffled sob and pounds her forehead with her fists. Kazoku rolls his eyes.

"So we don't heat up. What about when we get a mission in Snow country? What good will your precious suit be then?" he jeers. Hiroshi hesitates, and then decides that it is better to ignore his teammates than associate with them. Kazoku interprets this (correctly) as yet another victory for him. He may not be particularly intelligent, but he is devilishly clever and possessed of a great deal of common sense. "These damn suits leave nothing to the imagination, not that 'skinny' over there has anything that requires imagination," he swings the blade of his hand down in a chopping motion and flashes a wicked grin. Tanrei bursts into tears and bolts off into the woods, always having been sensitive at being a late-bloomer. Both of her teammates watch her disappear into the foliage, neither of them overly concerned at her disappearance. "Like. I. Was. Saying…" Kazoku punctuates each word with emphasis, "Now that it's a bit quieter around here. Then there's that _other_ woman, Tenten, the one with the mask," he points at the ANBU in question, only to find that she is no longer walking alongside the other three. At some point, the leaf-nin slipped away from the head of the processional.

"Huh… well, she _looks _tough. But then she's always taking orders from that blonde woman, real nasty things like stabling and provisioning the animals and stuff like that. Is she really an ANBU?" he asks his silent compatriot, "Because I didn't think they took crap from anybody."

Hiroshi doesn't answer and Kazoku begins to regret making fun of Tanrei. At least she made _noise_.

Tanrei crashes through the underbrush with approximately zero grace and even less subtlety. She has no idea where she's headed, but as long as it's away from those _jerks_, then everything is alright with her. That's a lie, because tears are streaming down her face and everything is most definitely not alright with her. But as long as she has some time to calm down and think about it, she'll come to realize that Kazoku is a bastard who'll never get a date until he's well older than twenty and that Hiroshi is a cold son-of-a-bitch who'll return to an empty bed in an empty home to a silent clan to be married to a vacant woman he doesn't love. Those thoughts generally make her feel a little better when they pick on her about being slower or weaker than they are. Or in Kazoku's case, her being flat as a board.

"You know you're not supposed to leave the main group, right?" a voice behind her whispers. She whips around, seeing only the lush green forest of Fire country behind her. _Enemies can throw their voices, stupid! _she chides herself mentally,_ You're really in trouble now!_

"W-who are you?" she asks, trying to sound braver than she feels and failing miserably.

A figure drops out of the canopy above her, making a three point landing behind the girl. Tanrei stops dead, her eyes squeezed closed. Fear rolls off the girl in palpable waves. She doesn't want to turn around and face what could be there. An enemy ninja, kunai drawn and with the drop on her, is her worst fear. Dying violently, while on a mission or in a fight, holds no appeal for Tanrei.

Tenten sighs. _This girl is shaking like a leaf_, "I'm not going to hurt you, Tanrei. Just turn around."

The Genin does, albeit with great hesitation. When she sets eyes upon the ANBU, she breathes a sigh of relief and her tense posture unwinds. "Whew, Tenten-san, you frightened me half to death!"

"Just remember that enemies can come from above, next time," the older kunoichi scolds. Tanrei has the good grace to look embarrassed; she did forget to check the trees when Tenten first spoke. It's a rookie mistake and hopefully it won't trouble her next time.

"Why are you out here?" the genin asks, "Shouldn't you be guarding the Sand-nin or something?"

Her ANBU accompaniment shrugs, "There are Sand Jounin and Chuunin scattered here and there in the procession. If there's trouble, I'll hear it."

"There are more than Genin traveling with us?" Tanrei frowns, "Then why are we here?"

Tenten takes a moment to answer, deciding that blaming 'That Idiot Hokage' wouldn't be a good idea, "Well, all of those Jounin and Chuunin aren't there to fend off an attack. Lots of them are just coming along to watch the exam and stay with family members taking it, so I guess they're more like clients or objectives than actual allies," Tanrei nods, accepting this supposition, "They're off-duty right now, but if things get rough, they'll probably jump in and help."

Tanrei falls silent, looking down at her small feet in equally undersized ninja sandals. It looks to the ANBU that she's about to ask a question, so Tenten tips back her puffer fish mask (the ANBU were running out of ideas that day, she suspects) to make herself appear more approachable and waits. It doesn't take long. The younger woman – she can't rightly be called a girl now that she's a Genin – sneaks a peak at Tenten's face and gasps, her mouth falling open.

She's staring. It's very uncomfortable. The waiting is the worst, because Tanrei's eyes are filling with tears steadily and the dam is about to burst.

It does. "You're so pretty!" Tanrei gushes, and then disintegrates into a sobbing mess. Tenten sighs and considers pulling her mask back over her face. This is not what she expected to do today. Some stupid girl that's having her self-esteem battered to pieces because she can't keep up with Lee's maniacal training scheme is now crying her eyes out because she's 'pretty?' _What the hell is wrong with my life?_ Tenten laments.

Thus far, Tenten has been gritting her teeth and bearing it in a stoic manner. Every time Temari orders her to do something less than pleasant (such as brew coffee for all the senior staff the day before last or oversee the digging of camp latrines last night,) the brunette has shut up and done it, repeating the phrase 'Just a little longer' over and over in her head like a silent mantra. With the thought that soon this indignity will be over, she drew strength enough to fulfill her _guest's_ (pain-in-the-ass, center-of-attention, bitchy drama queen's) requests (orders) with a reasonable degree of accuracy. No bowing and scraping though. Maybe next time she'll be calm and collected enough to make the act believable.

"There there," the ANBU pats the Genin on the shoulder in a manner she hopes is received as comforting rather than threatening. Tanrei doesn't react at all to the touch, which is worrisome at the very least. Honed reflexes are frequently the only thing that keep a ninja from pushing up Konoha Sunblossoms, and often turn a lethal blow into a survivable one. This little girl doesn't have any of them. "It's okay," _No it's not,_ "There's no reason to cry," _Except for the fact you're a travesty and not a shinobi, _"It'll get better," _if you work your ass off and don't get killed in the meantime…_

"No it won't!" the crying Genin shouts, with more force than Tenten expected of her, "Kazoku always makes fun of me for being a… a _late-bloomer_," she shudders, as though it's the worst thing in the world, "and Hiroshi doesn't talk to me because he thinks I'm useless! I'm not a good ninja, I'm not able to keep up with them or Lee-sensei; I'm not even cute!" she wails and buries her head against Tenten's ribcage.

_She's hugging me…_ Tenten's smile becomes rather fixed and her hands twitch uselessly in front of her. Of course, this little girl would look for the first female role-model she could lay her hands upon, and of course it would be her, seeing as she's 'Sensei's' old teammate. Kids today… Tenten thinks back, was she ever this shallow? No, not really, she reassures herself. But then a flash of white eyes pops into her mind and she can't help but think that she never really had her priorities in order when she was a Genin, either.

_But I wasn't this bad, dammit!_ She pushes the Genin off of her gently and holds her at arm's length so that she can look into her eyes (and keep her from hugging her again…) "Hey, don't fret about it," the brunette woman says. Like a bolt of lightning, inspiration strikes. It is time for revenge, "You remember the woman with the fan?"

"Yeah," Tanrei warbles, "the Kazekage?" Thankfully, Tanrei doesn't repeat her words to her teammates, because that might just be the key to pushing Tenten over the edge after all these years.

"Well, I heard that when she was a kid, she was an ugly tomboy. Ran around with all the shinobi and stayed out all night, but look at how the swan has grown." It hurt to say that, but it had to be done, Tenten tells herself, "But that was fifty-some years ago, of course, and attitudes have changed."

"Fifty years ago!" Tanrei picks up the bait in the way only an innocent twelve-year-old girl could, "But then she's got to be almost as old as the Hokage!"

"Yup," Tenten agrees, secretly thrilled at the comparison she had not considered.

"But she looks so young! She doesn't have any lines or wrinkles or grey hairs."

"That's the secret, isn't it? Her 'miracle longevity' is actually a very powerful genjutsu used to hide her true appearance. Didn't you ever wonder how our own Hokage could stay looking so young when she's obviously so very old?"

"Whooooaaa!" Tanrei gasps, the weight of this 'truth' destroying one of the supporting beliefs of her tidy, little world, "What's she really look like?"

"Well," Tenten hesitates, "I really shouldn't tell you…" but Tanrei looks adamant and the ANBU makes signs of defeat, "Okay, okay, well… don't tell anyone I told you this, but if you can see through the jutsu, you know that the Kazekage is a withered old woman. Crow's feet, laugh lines, you name it; she's got it. And she sags."

"No!" the Genin seems scandalized.

"Yes," Tenten replies with cold certainty, "She's lived in the desert for how many years? That alone does terrible things to a woman's skin. And that's not even taking into consideration all the training she's done and people she's killed," Tanrei's eyes go wide at this, but Tenten continues to speak casually, "Oh yes, it's very clear that the Kazekage is hiding her age."

"But what about the man with red hair? Aren't they supposed to be related? He doesn't look very old…"

"He's her son, didn't you hear?" she taps her chin, pensive, "So we can add stretch marks to that list…" Now Tenten is enjoying herself. It is nice to see that any faith Lee's pupil may have held in Temari is now gone. A perturbed expression crosses her face and the ANBU prepares to weather this sudden squall.

"Why does she do it then? Lie to everyone about her age? Wouldn't people respect her more for being honest?"

That's a naïve question if Tenten ever heard one. Respected for honesty… in _this_ line of work? _You don't know the first thing about being a kunoichi, do you girl?_ But she comes up with a clever response in a reasonable amount of time. "The Kazekage is very, very vain. She used to pride herself on her appearance, years ago, so when it started to fade with age," Tenten spreads her hands, as though this was a common occurrence, "she looked for a way to stop it. When she couldn't find one, she tried the next best thing."

"Hiding it," Tanrei intones, as though she just clued in a moment ago.

"Exactly," the brunette congratulates, "It's also to cover up the fact she's not as strong as she used to be…" the words are casual and irreverent, but their intent is deadly. "She's getting old," she answers the questioning look her Genin conspirator shoots her way, "Slower reflexes, weaker resistance, less willpower. It happens with age, you know. Her memory might even be going, for all I know. But it's an important charade to give her ninja faith in her abilities and her leadership. She puts forth a strong appearance so her ninja don't question her judgment and orders as much. If you're weak, then you can't be a kage, right?"

"Right," Tanrei agrees, frowning something fierce. She doesn't approve of this 'getting old' thing, but she definitely doesn't like liars. It's hard to say which she likes less.

The shorter kunoichi opens her mouth to say something, but before she gets out the words, a pulse of chakra washes over them from the east. Tenten's head snaps up, calmly placing the mask back over her face. The Genin looks at her with a fearful expression, as though unsure of what is to become of her.

"Go back to your teammates and get orders from Lee… your Jounin-sensei," Tenten amends, "Tell him that I've gone on ahead to determine the source of that chakra."

Tanrei stands stock still for a moment, until Tenten barks "Go _Now_!" and the smaller ninja leaps into action. In an eye-blink, the clearing is empty. The ANBU disappears in a whirl of leaves, transporting herself straight up twenty meters into the treetops. From there, she begins to move due-east, toward the source of the disturbance. Somewhere, somehow, she knows that chakra is familiar. That is extremely worrisome, and can only mean one of two things: Someone is signaling for help via Chakra Flare no Jutsu, or someone is really burning through their chakra and will _need_ help soon. Hopefully, she'll make it there in time.

If she had a moment to think about it, Tenten would feel kind of bad for lying to the Genin. She obviously trusted her if she swallowed that story hook, line, and sinker. But then she would consider how many people Tanrei would tell in the interim and decide that it's completely worth it to punch a hole in Wonder-Girl's reputation. Nasty rumors have a tendency of doing that.

_Maybe next time she won't hug me.

* * *

_

Sakura sighs and pushes open the doors of the building before her. It's a bright, sunny Thursday morning in Konoha and the pink-haired medic-nin still doesn't know where Naruto is. The only thing her mentor and ex-sensei would tell her is that her fuck-buddy/lover/whatever (still confuses her to think about it) was out on a dangerous mission and would not be returning for the foreseeable future. Naturally, this did not still well with Sakura, who had a very terse argument with the Hokage during which there was much knuckle-cracking and throwing out of threatening gestures. Sadly for her, thumb-wrestling seems to be the only form of gambling at which Tsunade excels. _Never bet with her, it's a recipe for disaster, _Sakura thinks as she wrings her swollen hand.

The hospital greets her, shining white with bland upholstery and staid landscape portraits covering too-blank walls. Sakura, despite her medical abilities, has never been truly comfortable here in the hospital. Several cadre of on-call medic-nin are stationed here at all times during the relative calm of peacetime. During times of conflict, however, the medic-nin are moved to forward positions over the whole of Fire country, so that Konoha shinobi on missions might have better access to healing. Right now, with the state of turmoil between Cloud and Leaf, the hospital is mostly empty of medical-ninjutsu practitioners. That's alright, because Leaf-nin are taking more aggressive mission-cycles and shifting assignments in border areas frequently enough that a good deal of them do not return to Konoha in between missions anymore.

This does not account for the active combat medic-nin that comprise almost a fourth of the Chuunin, Jounin, and ANBU ranks. Those medic-nin are the ones who take part in missions like regular fighting-type shinobi. Sakura, who is considered to be gifted in the art of medical ninjutsu beyond the ken of most, doubles between mission duties with the ANBU and working as a ninja-surgeon and long-term care-provider in the hospital. It keeps her busy and her skills sharp, so she doesn't really complain. Everyone is so overworked these days, none so many as the Genin, who will become the next generation of leaders and warriors, and the Chuunin, who will become the next generation of ANBU and Jounin. Almost every shift she has, some poor kid almost half her age will be brought into the infirmary on the brink of death and be saved by a medic-nin's steady hand. Generally hers, but sometimes other people play the hero.

She heaves a great sigh and runs her fingers through long, scraggily pink hair. It's not as soft or pretty as it used to be, but the color is still as vibrant and eye-catching as it always was, so it's not all bad. This manic pace isn't making her grey yet.

Training accidents have gone up in frequency as of late. Genin and Chuunin are falling prey to overworking themselves, exhaustion, fatigue, and plain inexperience. Even Jounin occasionally walk through the door with an injury or two from working themselves until they drop. The medic-nin heal it without complaint, handing out herbal pastes for topical painkillers and antibiotics. If the enemy were to attack tomorrow – Hokage forbid – then the standing ninja of Konoha must be in their best shape to repel invaders.

But every so often, a Genin working in secret to perfect a technique or push that little bit farther injures him or herself so severely that he/she bleeds to death before help can arrive. Recently, Tsunade has taken steps to mandate and fix the borders of training grounds around the Konoha area, so that everyone may practice in a relatively safe manner and ANBU on guard duty sweep through every five or ten minutes to check for self-inflicted injuries and unconscious shinobi. It's saved a few lives in the past four months since inception, but once and a while, one slips beneath the radar and is lost forever.

Sakura stops at the front desk and signs in, scanning the names on the duty roster today. _Hinata's here_, _Genji Motari, and that new girl, Takumasu_. Nothing spectacular, although Hinata's certainly a helpful addition.

Before the Hyuuga-in-exile graduated the medical program two years ago, Sakura was the only truly gifted medic-nin in Konoha, the Hokage as the only outstanding exception. Back then, Sakura was doing missions almost all the time as a static member of Naruto's Combat Team 4, so she didn't have a lot of time to devote to the more mundane aspects of her chosen vocation. Time in the hospital fell by the wayside, as she spent more time keeping Neji and Kiba in one piece than would have liked, and the few days she scraped together in Konoha were generally considered 'time-off'. But as personal training is not something you do during duty, Sakura ended up spending most of her time developing new techniques and mastering her older ones.

Haruno Sakura narrows her eyes. She's heard the rumors that Hinata's a better medic-nin than she is, and the pink-haired girl doesn't like it. After all, who was trained by the greatest medical genius in the history of Konoha, the world even? Then there are other nasty rumors, like Hinata's problems with nerves. Apparently, when she gets flustered, things can become very lethal for her patients. But when she's on her game, she's supposedly the best…

_It's that damn Byakugan of hers. How am I supposed to compete with that?_ And again, Sakura hates being just a normal girl without any special powers or bloodlines. No matter what she does, someone is always better than she is, because of those damn bloodline limits or demons or whatever. It's enough to make her scream sometimes. With a soft growl and a determined grimace on her face, Sakura stalks away from the desk nurses just as the daily gossip gets hot. They watch her leaving without a word of goodbye, their theories about the red-headed Hunter-nin and her admiring bartender friend trail off, leaving their jaws hanging slack in astonishment. Then they look to one another and begin formulating nasty things to say about Haruno Sakura behind her back. Office politics is a dangerous game in the shinobi world.

Sakura places her things in a locker with her name emblazoned on the front. Hesitating slightly at her hip-pouch, she decides to leave it on today. The war looms closer every day and it may one day spill over into the bright and clean hallways of this hospital. That day could be today and it would not do to be caught flat-footed and weaponless.

She changes into her white medic-nin uniform, ties her hair up into a messy braid, and scrubs her hands with powerful antibacterial agents. Finally ready for whatever the day might bring, Sakura strides confidently out into the long-term care ward.

The rounds are boring, much of the same. Administer painkillers here, dermal healing jutsu for burns there, check abrasions over there, run diagnostics on broken leg further down the ward. It's all very bland and Sakura remembers when she used to do this sort of work in the field. Give Kiba a disgusting dollop of bluish goop for his pain and then smooth healing chakra over his burned face, check to see how well Naruto's healing ability is coping with the hairline fracture of his left femur, changing the bandaging on Neji's arm when he near destroyed the skin slowing his fall off that cliff, take a stimulant, soldier pill, or adrenaline shot for her own fatigue. It was a thousand times more interesting than this sort of work. Only during emergencies does Sakura truly enjoy her work. The struggle to keep a pulse, the race against the clock, fighting off death and necrosis at every turn while the victim seems to find a new hole to bleed from every moment. It was thrilling and the only time she felt alive in these sterile walls.

As she moves toward a knot of Genin grouped together in an open-air hall, Sakura catches sight of Hinata bending over one of them. Then she prods the boy in the side, causing him to burst into a fit of giggles. Soon all of the children are laughing jovially and the medic-nin is smiling. The Genin don't seem to notice, but Sakura catches the weariness in her expression and the sadness in her eyes. There are seven children, and all of them seem to know one another.

Hinata stands and starts handing out sweets with clear wrappers. Each child holds out their hands and asks the nice doctor please before she gives them all one. The shorter medic-nin smiles again, this time a genuinely happy smile. Sakura knows, just from this distance, that these sweets are some sort of medicine, probably an immune system booster or nutrient pill, wrapped in tasty candy. Hinata makes them herself for the express purpose of giving them to younger patients. _She probably hand-wraps that cellophane_, Sakura thinks. The treats are strawberry-flavored and very popular.

Shaking her dark hair in amusement, Hinata bids them a good afternoon and escapes before they can call her back for more candy and stories. There is a spring in her step as she walks toward Sakura and shows no sign of surprise at being watched. _Hmmph, damn Byakugan. Here I was trying to be quiet and she skips right over courtesy._

"Haruno-san, ohayo gozaimasu," Hinata greets, throwing in a short bow, "are you ready for your examination?" Up close Sakura notices that the Hyuuga is looking a little pale and more than just haggard, as though she's been sleeping in the medic-nin lounge as of late. Her pale lavender eyes are dull with fatigue, but she holds her head up as best she can.

"Examination?" Sakura asks, confused. Her next physical isn't until next month, when she'll get a reapplication of the contraceptive seal, and her next tenure exam isn't until November, so the rosette-ninja has no idea what her colleague means.

"Your physical," Hinata says by way of explanation, "I received this message from the Hokage saying that you were feeling a little under the weather and were wondering if you could have your physical moved to today. It specifically asked if I would perform your examination. Do you not remember it?" she sounds almost disappointed and a little heart-broken by it.

This is the first Sakura had heard of it, although she figures it's all Tsunade's fault, as per usual. Always meddling she is. The taller medic-nin sighs, accepting her fate, "No, I didn't remember it, but we may as well get this over with, right? So we can get back to work."

Hinata seems to miss the bitterness in Sakura's voice and nods with muted enthusiasm, "Let us get started then. I have prepared exam room seven in anticipation." Sakura casts a quick glance back toward the children now sitting up and talking quietly amongst themselves. Hinata catches this look, because she sees everything, and lets out a shuddering breath, "They're academy students."

Now that Sakura thinks about it, they do look sort of small to be Genin. "What are they doing here? Certainly there wasn't an accident at the academy?"

"No," Hinata shakes head, "They were practicing after class in the academy training yard and one of them began to show off for a girl he liked. Another boy, who liked the same girl, challenged him to a fight and it became serious rather quickly. One of the boys used a throwing-mine he had stolen from his parents and the other tried to block it with an earth jutsu his parents had taught him. The resultant explosion tore the rock wall apart and showered the group of children with stone splinters, so we kept them a few days for examination after surgery," Sakura winces and Hinata continues in a dull monotone, "the boy who used the earth jutsu was dead-on-arrival. The other one has no idea. They keep asking to see him, where he is, and when he'll be coming back. I don't have the heart to tell them…" her voice trembles softly and her gaze drops, "I was never good at that part."

"The worst part is that this could have been prevented if only they had some measure of supervision," Sakura bites her lip. After the post-Sand/Sound war of their youth, the birth-rate in Konoha had skyrocketed, as it did after all major conflicts, and that generation had washed over the academy within the last few years. Combine a wave of new academy students with recent high-end losses against the Cloud, Mist, and Akatsuki and the result is that there are too many children for too few teachers. Rock Lee spends his off-days teaching academy students basic taijutsu and Shikamaru holds 'strategy' sessions which are no more than excuses to find new Intelligence talent and foster it young. But it isn't sufficient when a whole society has gone to war.

"But anyway," Hinata changes the subject, clearing away some of the descending gloom, "the room awaits and we both have quite a lot of work to do."

They walk in amicable silence, each caught in their own thoughts. Hinata dwells on her charges and how she will go about breaking the news to them. Sakura wonders how children can be so happy in a building that has covered its history of failure and death in bright white paint. By the time they enter the examination room neither girl has divined an answer. Hinata closes the door behind her and Sakura begins to disrobe.

Hinata shakes her head and tells her that will not be necessary. She taps her temples and her smile is bittersweet. Sakura fumes on the inside, again some advantage Hinata has in the mutual profession. Of course, the shorter medic-nin doesn't notice her anger, because she never developed her Byakugan to do that sort of thing. With a few quick hand seals, the veins around her eyes bloat and the world leaps into incredible clarity. Slowly, she examines each layer of skin thoroughly, asking Sakura to turn in place several times for a better view. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, she begins to examine muscle structure, finding evidence of strain all along her arms and legs. Apparently, the form of super-strength Sakura uses is physically draining to the extreme. Nothing her personal file, which has magically appeared in Hinata's hands, doesn't already note. Over all, Sakura seems to be in great health. Her brain seems to be in perfect working order, the synapses firing in the manner she expects to see and there is no apparent damage. Her eyes seem a little strained and they aren't quite as good as those of the best shinobi, but they appear to be within average for kunoichi. They were probably better at one point, but all the studying and poring over medical scrolls into the dark of night took its toll.

Respiratory system, circulatory system, endocrine system, nervous system, everything seems to be in working order. No problems here. Sakura shifts from one foot to another, tired of standing in place. Hinata smiles and tells her just a little longer and instructs her to turn to face her again. The pink-haired examinee does so. Hinata delves in with greater clarity, detecting an abnormality in the chakra-structure of her inner coils. Something's tied them all together about her middle. Flicking over to penetrating sight, the Hyuuga makes a detailed search of Sakura's intestinal tract.

Watching Hinata's face grimace and lips purse in frustration, Sakura asks "What is it? Is something wrong?" a bolt of fear strikes her right in the chest and for a second she thinks her knees might give out. The thought of something so difficult to see that it is giving the Byakugan (the wretched thing) trouble is frightening.

Hinata lets out a soft gasp, her eyelids opening their widest, "Haruno-san… Sakura," she corrects, taking both of her colleague's hands gently into her own, "Perhaps you should sit down. The news I have to give you is rather startling."

"Something _is_ wrong!" Sakura gasps, but takes the seat anyway, "Tell me! What is wrong with me?" and then proceeds to bombard the shy medic-nin with a dozen questions and theories about the nature of her illness and possible treatment options.

"Sakura," Hinata says quietly. The word is firm enough that it cuts off the pink-haired kunoichi's rant mid-sentence and she falls silent, "You are…" Hinata hesitates, seeing the look of fear creeping up on Sakura, then decides it's just best to tell her straight-out, "you are pregnant."

To her credit, Sakura takes the news with a straight face, her previous expression of panic sliding away like raindrops. In Hinata's experience with this sort of situation, it is always better for her if they faint or scream or react in some fashion. Those that don't either have some reason to avoid questions or simply don't want to have a child. It's frightening when people don't react to the news, the way Sakura stares blankly at her. Hinata suddenly wishes she had come down ill with a freak virus today.

"But…" Sakura begins slowly, pursing her lips in thought, "how can that be? I have the seal."

The dark-haired medic-nin hesitates. _How can I say this…? _she wonders, "The contraceptive seal is not perfect."

"I know that!" Sakura snaps, glaring jade knives at her doctor. Hinata flinches and it gives Sakura a sickening feeling of satisfaction. Before she can apologize, Hinata forges ahead boldly.

"The seal is not permanent. It makes major modifications to our hormones and ovaries, reroutes a dozen minor chakra coils. It degrades over time as the body begins to reject the seal's control. Sometimes…" her voice quavers here, "it can be forced to degrade… f-faster."

Sakura, who had never heard this before, leaps on the word, "Faster? How?"

Hinata clears her throat and shuffles the medical files in her hands uselessly, "From," her face goes a delicate sort of pink, "f-from o-overuse. S-sexually, I m-mean." Looking away from Sakura would do absolutely nothing for the Byakugan-user, and it would only undermine her tenuous position of strength in this conversation.

"I've never heard of this," Sakura declares with no small amount of suspicion. Something doesn't add up here.

"C-Chakra, when used to stimulate the clitoris or vagina walls, can damage the seal enough to allow for… for conception."

Sakura is looking fairly murderous now. Naruto, how could he be so stupid as to… a thought occurs to her. _Sasuke, I'm laying on my back, he's breathing into my neck, pulls out when he's finished, fingers trail down my belly like an afterthought, a flicker of dark-blue in the corner of my eye, and then I feel his fingers finish what he started. _Sasuke. It was Sasuke. Whether accidentally or through some brilliant design, he managed to crack the contraceptive seal. _It's _his_ fault I'm pregnant._

And then something else, something significantly more important, occurs to her. "Hinata-san," Sakura smiles in a winning manner, as though nothing were the matter, "How old would you say the fetus is, in your opinion?"

Hinata smiles, glad that the sudden Hurricane Sakura has passed, and directs her entire attention upon the tiny life growing within her colleague's body. For a moment, she considers. Most other medic-nin wouldn't be able to give a ball-park estimate in this area, but Hinata's caught so many pregnancies in the first few weeks that she is intimately aware of early fetal growth. Yet another advantage of the Byakugan…

"I'd say, and I'm just guessing here," she covers her trail, because human storms have relapses after all, "that this baby is about nine days old."

Sakura gasps inaudibly, feeling like she's been hit by a Snow-country locomotive. _Nine days ago? Last Tuesday was the day I left Sasuke's and went to Naruto's place. That means the fetus could be Sasuke's or Naruto's! I… I can't believe it._

"Sakura…-san?" Hinata adds, "Uchiha-san will be overjoyed, yes?"

She has a gentle smile on her face, as though to say 'It's not so bad after all,' and Sakura cannot bring herself to punch a hole in Hinata's balloon. So weakly, she forces out the words "Yes, he will be," but she disagrees. If anything, the thought of her being with Naruto was enough to throw her physically from his bed and his life. The idea that Naruto may have knocked up his ex-girlfriend (or that the mother is unsure of the paternity of the child) might be enough to provoke a murderous rampage. The rosette medic-nin puts on a friendly smile and favors Hinata with a tearful look, as though she might burst into tears of joy at any moment.

"Now," Hinata says, all smiles now that Sakura has convinced her that she's happy about it, "there are some things you should know. I'm positive that you already know all of the basics, but I think it would be a good thing for both of us to review the list of things you can and cannot eat. I can never remember the entire list," she laughs brightly and Sakura feels compelled to chuckle along weakly, "We have a bunch of literature we can give you about the activities you can and cannot do while pregnant. You'll have to go on inactive duty, of course, and you're not allowed to train in the meantime. Too high-risk, as you well know. Oh, and we'll have to organize regular appointments for your baby. About every two weeks should do the trick."

Sakura nods, only giving half an ear to Hinata's near-rambling. A bleak cold has settled in the pit of her stomach when she realizes how everyone will react to this news. Most of the people she knows won't care or will assume that the fetus is Sasuke's. It helps her to think of the child as a fetus instead of a real, living being that will grow into a person, keeps her head clear. But the important people, like Sasuke, Naruto, her mother, and Ino, the ones she will probably tell the truth, will react in ways that will probably provoke very uncomfortable questions and situations. Her mother might ask who the father is, and Sakura will have to lie in that instance. If she doesn't ask and Sakura can get away with her mother's assumption of the Uchiha's culpability, then Sakura will not have to feel guilty for lying. However, she'd be taking a big risk going back to Sasuke. If it really is his, then she'll be alright, but if she tells him it is (and she _will_) and it is born with a full head of blonde hair (like Naruto and his father were) then Sasuke might just kill her where she stands. He's pretty unpredictable and Naruto is the biggest sore spot ever.

_Ino, _she decides_, I have to go talk to Ino. She can help me. _Perhaps Ino will have some advice on the proper resolution to this situation. Hopefully, it will be something that Sakura can actually face doing. Her hand settles over her abdomen, and Hinata mistakes it for a protective gesture, smiling with such saccharine sweetness that Sakura tastes bile.

"How about Tuesday, the first of July?" Sakura nods mutely, still staring through Hinata's face. The other medic-nin doesn't mind. She's used to this sort of spacey behavior from kunoichi that have just received the 'news.' It's a big transition, a milestone in life, and there's a lot of change in Sakura's future. Hinata can't help but feel slightly jealous.

The door to the examination room bursts open and there stands Genji Motari. He's a tall, burly sort of man, fresh from the medical program at the academy. Unlike most members of his clan, he's put away the bladed weapons in favor of an entirely different set of knives designed for an entirely different set of enemies. Hinata rounds on him, intent to chew him out for interrupting clear in her pale eyes, but his labored breathing halts her. He's just run here from the OR and he's leaning against the doorframe. His brown eyes have not once looked Sakura's way, which is fortunate because she's removed the outer layer of her clothing and if Hinata hadn't used the Byakugan, she would most definitely be naked.

"What is it?" Hinata asked, the nervous worry in her obvious.

"Mist-nin…" Genji wheezes, "ANBU team hit on… return… medic-nin dead… two in critical… code blue… you," he points to Hinata, "needed in OR, stat…." and he doubles over with a hacking cough, finally getting a good breath in.

Hinata gives a momentary hesitation, and then her back straightens. "I'm done here. Let's go."

Pulling her uniform back on over her head, Sakura follows them at their sprinting pace. They clear thirty paces in an eye-blink, deftly twisting around the corner by springing off the wall, and diving through the door to the stairwell feet-first. It slams open, knocking an orderly flying, papers spraying every which way. Hinata does not spare him a glance (when in truth she's already examined him for injuries with the Byakugan) and leaps over the railing to fall through the center of the stairs. The three medic-nin drop like diving falcons, spending a bare instant to absorb the impact with the ground before Genji shoulder-charges the door open and Hinata takes the lead.

"Out of the way!" Genji bellows, and nurses, orderlies and patients dive to the floor to avoid being trampled. They make two turns, using the walls like launching pads again. Inside the prep room adjacent to the OR, they finally come to a stop. All three of them are slightly winded and Genji seems to have difficulty catching his breath. As though Hinata just realized Sakura was there, she rounds on her and glares impatiently.

"What?" Sakura asks, tossing off her top and pulling on green medical scrubs.

"You're not supposed to be here," Hinata says firmly.

"But…!" Sakura begins to protest. Hinata shakes her head, not taking no for an answer.

"Chakra usage has been shown to cause miscarriages," she fishes around in her jacket pockets for a moment and then hands over a thick pamphlet, "Chakra _depletion_ triggers one every time. Go home Sakura, there's nothing you can do here."

"Hyuuga-sensei!" one of the nurses shouts, "This one's vitals are dropping!" There are two ANBU in there and both of them need attention. Even 'genius' Hinata can't handle two patients simultaneously. Sakura glares furiously for a second. The world slows down and they battle with jade and silver.

Then Genji Motari claps a hand on her shoulder, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke _So that's why he's out of breath so easily_, and tells her "Don't worry. We've got this one."

Sakura doesn't quite believe him, and she can tell by the way Hinata's nose flares and her brows wrinkle ever-so-slightly that she doesn't either. His habit may be atrocious, but his hands are steadier than any other medic-nin she knows.

"Sensei!" the nurse pleads.

"Fine," Sakura relents, shoving the pamphlet fiercely into her pocket and begins to pull off her scrubs. Hinata nods in a pleased fashion and zips into the operating room, shadowed closely by Genji. For a while, Sakura watches them through the clear, Plexiglas screen between the prep room and the OR. Genji moves with wide eyes and a deliberate grim expression, reacting to sudden changes in his patient's condition and surprises (new places from which to bleed, for instance) with almost comical expressions. He's in his element, Sakura figures. Hinata, however, has a permanent frown on her face, having taken the worse-off of the two. She doesn't move much, dabbing unguents and scribing exacting little characters with ink and blood (mostly the victims, but occasionally her own and other compatible donors'.) She works her chakra into the muscles of her patient's throat, forcing down a noxious concoction meant to slow circulation and suspend animation. Hopefully, that will get this river of blood under control. The water's already been forced out of his lungs by the teammate that brought both ANBU back, probably saving his life before he reached the safety of Konoha. Nurses and medics-in-training have already sealed the scrapes and minor lacerations, stripped, cleaned and prepped the target areas for her. She wipes her forehead with a sterile cloth before beginning the _real_ work and Sakura looks away, unable to watch anymore.

She storms out of the prep room. Hinata and Genji don't notice her absence. There really isn't anything she can do here, because almost all of her medical abilities are based upon the ability to use chakra, and that's out of the question now. Everything else, the mundane medical knowledge of regular doctors, can be done by the nurses. There is nothing left for her to do here. Barely three hours after she came in to work today, Sakura finds herself standing before the front desk again, asking for the sign-in sheet. She needs to sign out, because she's pregnant, she tells them. Their hard expressions (they certainly remember being snubbed earlier) soften for a moment before they exchange wicked looks and hand over the sign-in sheet. As Sakura writes down her date and time with a doctor's signature, the nurse on the right asks her if she's filled out the proper paperwork for pregnant kunoichi. Paperwork is beyond the realm of Sakura's experience and despite her anger, she is surprised enough to tell them the truth. No.

They pass her a three-page form and a pen. 'Fill this out in triplicate' they tell her. Sakura complains, asking why they need three copies of this form. The one on the left shrugs and tells her that one copy is for their personal records, the second is for the archives, and the third is for the Hokage and the Missions Office.

Halfway through filling out the third form, Sakura realizes that this little document will quite conveniently keep her legally restricted from missions for the duration of her pregnancy. It also waives her rights to training field access and ANBU munitions supplies. In other words, by signing this piece of paper, as long as Sakura is pregnant she cannot be a kunoichi. The pen snaps in her tightened fist, coating her hand with ink. It's of little concern to her as she wanders back to the desk. The nurses look up at her expectantly.

"Hey, can I take this form home with me and discuss it with the baby's father?" It's a lie, but she does it with such finesse, "Some of these questions are kind of specific…" she wheedles just enough to make them know she really means it. They look at one another, as though planning their next move, and Sakura knows she's got them.

"If you like, dear," the one on the left, the pretty one, says, "but remember to turn it in by next Thursday," Sakura smiles and nods, trying to look as cute and young as possible. It works, except for the scraggly hair and twitching right eye.

"Don't do anything illegal," the one on the right reminds as Sakura charts a brisk course away from the desk. When she's out of earshot, the nurse on the right, the wide, toad-like one, mumbles, "She took your pen." That's not true, but neither of them know better. Yet another petty grudge bored office-workers develop to while away the long hours of the day.

On the street, Sakura pulls the pamphlet out of her pocket, giving it the first bit of attention since she received it. It is a faded olive color and has pictures of smiling women holding their stomachs on the front. She turns it over, feeling the staples along the spine. That makes it more like a book than a pamphlet, she decides. Perhaps a book would be tolerable.

Opening it to the first page, she reads the title of this informational booklet: _So You're Having a Baby! A Kunoichi's Guide to Her First Pregnancy._ For some reason, Sakura finds this title to be so offensive and degrading that she shoves the hideous thing back into her pocket with such fierceness that the seam gives a little.

Deep down, she feels infuriated that someone thinks she should be happy.

* * *

Two hours later, Genji will have stabilized his patient enough to move him to the intensive care ward. At that point, he'll come up behind Hinata and press his hand to the back of her neck, funneling his remaining chakra reserves into the short woman. It'll feel like a cool, invigorating breeze to her tired mind and she'll come back refreshed. Eventually, he'll have to stop for fear of chakra depletion, but it will be enough to keep her going for the remaining four hours of surgery it takes her to save her patient's life. Afterward, Genji will stumble out of the operating room with a pleased look on his face, and offer to tell all the people in the waiting room (the ANBU teammate and a group of family members) the good news. Hinata, who was never very good at that part, will accept his offer and shake his hand in thanks. They work together well and she will hope that he'll be around the next time she has to make the long walk into the OR. He'll clap her on the shoulder, which will almost make her collapse from exhaustion and then they'll laugh tiredly when he proscribes going home to get some bed-rest. He'll walk out into the adulation of the waiting room and receive all the praise and thanks for their joint-miracle, but she won't mind. Hinata will stumble back into the long-term ward and collapse in a bed near the academy students. They won't bother her and she'll fall asleep wondering what Sakura's baby will look like. 

In two months time, Genji will be transferred to a forward position like so many others Hinata has known and she will never see him again.

* * *

"Say that again," Naruto menaces. He is about four seconds from exploding into a big-ass ball of demonic-powered, fiery death. 

Sasuke doesn't back down, "You heard it the first time, dobe." The ANBU Commander bares his teeth, sharp like an Inuzuka; his mouth seems to contain entirely too many needle-points. Sasuke is not impressed. Sharp teeth do not a demon make.

"Maybe I didn't," he growls, "you should repeat yourself. Enunciate this time, for my sake."

Sasuke stares at him for a moment, and then repeats his insult. "You're worthless, Uzumaki Naruto… _sir_," he sneers, "Your presence on this mission was unnecessary. The Hokage should give you missions more suited to your unique _talents_."

"What does _that_ mean?"

The Hunter-nin crosses his arms casually and says, "Blowing up bridges and killing hundreds of civilians is more your style, right _Fox_?"

Naruto bristles, hands shaking in uncontrollable rage. _Sasuke is trying to provoke me, trying to provoke me, trying to provoke me, don't let him, don't let him, don't let him, _Naruto tells himself, repeating it over and over again so that the point sinks in. It doesn't work as well as he'd like.

"But then again," Sasuke continues airily, "figures that she'd want her favorite apple-polishing, half-demon to take the high-profile missions, give you a bigger reputation, instead of letting the proper authorities handle this one."

"Ah, so it all comes out now, Sasuke?" the blonde laughs bitterly, "Tired of constantly being one-upped by the 'dead last'?" he places his hands on his hips and tilts his head to the side, "Is little-bitty Uchiha angry that he's not good enough to break out on his own? Or has he forgotten what happened the last time we trusted him?"

"Tell me, Naruto," Sasuke says conversationally, but the temperature of the forest has dropped to absolute zero, "How did you get assigned to this mission?"

"Honestly Sasuke," Naruto wipes at the corner of his eye, as though brushing away an imaginary tear, "I'd rather be a million other places than here, right now."

"Did you fuck the Hokage, too?" Sasuke continues as though he had not heard Naruto, "Fucked her so good that she did anything you wanted? Women really are suckers for a good lay, you know." He brushes off his fingernails and examines the back of his hand, as though he had not a care in the world.

Naruto takes a step forward, spitting a curse at his greatest rival. His bluish chakra flares around him like a banner, itching, pleading, begging in Naruto's mind to be formed into some horribly destructive technique and blast that insolent worm where he stands. _Who dares speak to me with such a tongue? Strike them down, smite them for their impudence._

So much for stealth, with a display like that, everyone within ten miles will know their exact location.

That voice, whispering in the echoes of his mind, urges him forward, so he takes another step toward his intended target. _Kill him! Let him serve as an example of those who would cross me! My power is absolute, none shall disrespect it._ Naruto raises a gloved hand, pointing at Sasuke's expressionless mask. It quivers slightly, twitching in his fiery anger.

"You're going to regret that, Sasuke-teme," Naruto intones.

The seal on the bridge of his nose activates, a distinctive four-part Crow seal folding out like wings across his eyelids. His eyes are heart-breaking blue. Then he blinks and they're Sharingan sanguine, the inner ring empty and swirling madly.

Sasuke's Sharingan, active constantly while on duty, picks up the strange midnight chakra leaking from his team leader's altered eyes. It spills from the corner of his eyes, traveling the length of his nose, flaring like feet at his nostrils and sharpening to a point across the center of his forehead. It looks like a spectral black crow. Sasuke knows this chakra well, having chased it for years and fought it on a half-dozen painful occasions. Neji, on the other hand, sees a foreign chakra manipulating the around Naruto's eyes, rerouting them into something more like Sasuke's own structure.

This is Uchiha Itachi's chakra. Though lacking in the disaffected nature of its original bearer, it has taken on some of Naruto's emotion, twisting in his hatred into something truly horrific. It carries all of the force and lethal intent, but with Naruto's own unnaturally seething presence instead of Itachi's quiet, invisible demeanor. The very air seems to thicken and vibrate with malice and Neji feels the hairs stand up along the back of his neck.

Their eyes lock, Naruto and Sasuke, and the Uchiha's chest tightens. Whether it is in fear or anticipation, Sasuke does not know. This feeling prevents him from drawing breath regardless. It is almost as though Naruto was seeing _inside _of him, looking at him with greater scrutiny than any Hyuuga could manage, and examining Sasuke's very core essence. He shivers and tries to look away, but finds himself unable.

_Do it_, Naruto tells himself. _He asked for it and he more than deserves it._

_But that would kill him…_ he recoils. The flame of anger grows anyway.

_That is the point. He cannot be allowed to live after such an offense. Be ruthless and you will never be challenged. Be unflinching in your judgment and you will never be second-guessed. Hesitate, deliberate, worry… and they will see you as weak. _

_I'm not weak._

_Exactly. So do what you know you have to._

In this moment, Uzumaki Naruto cannot think of a person he hates more than Uchiha Sasuke. He loses himself in reflection for a infinitesimal moment, remembering every slight, every insult, and every wound. The hot flash of pain lancing through his lung as the Chidori strikes home. The look in Kakashi's eyes when Sasuke succeeded on a mission. The way Sakura dropped him the second Sasuke returned two years ago. The despair of being abandoned for a snake. The fury at his abuse of Sakura. The flame grows into a raging bonfire of emotion, barely contained by Naruto's restraint, his face and hands shaking in rage.

The word useless floats in his mind. Sasuke flinches slightly, expecting a blow that never landed. That small bit of movement provokes Naruto into action and his delicate control snaps like a twig.

He attacks. His fingers slash the air apart and the world ripples like a great invisible force is bending it into a thin line, a razor-sharp line. To Sasuke, a blade of barely-visible chakra trails along behind Naruto's hand, leaping from his outstretched fingers like a handful of shuriken but with a speed even the Yellow Flash could not have mustered. He cannot predict its movement with the Sharingan, because it is not entirely physical, nor does he believe it to be real and threatening. Even at his most powerful, Uchiha Sasuke has underestimated Uzumaki Naruto, something he has sworn he would never do again.

_He stands over a broken man, somehow still breathing despite living through possibly the most powerful killing technique known to shinobi. But then, Naruto thinks, he's survived it before and he'll probably survive it again. May as well test that theory. His bright blue Rasengan spins up in one palm, thanks to that sweet training ero-sennin gave him and he holds it over his head like the Sword of Damocles, ready to plunge into his opponent's unprotected stomach. The shirt has already been blasted open by this technique and the burned skin is knitting together quickly and quietly before Naruto's very eyes. The Akatsuki cloak is in tatters, little better than confetti anymore._

"_I want to ask you something, Kabuto-san…" he whispers, barely above the rasping growl of his killing technique, "Are you afraid of me now?"_

"_What?" Kabuto spits blood out against the cracked flagstones and tries to get his feet underneath him. Naruto plants his ANBU boot deeply into the mostly healed gut wound, sending his fallen enemy crashing to the ground once more. The white-haired ninja curls up into a fetal position, cradling his stomach in a vain attempt to make the hurting stop. This Naruto is different. He's not playing around, he's not waiting, and he's not pulling and punches. He's preempting Kabuto's abilities, pushing him further and further onto the defensive, his clones are everywhere at once, forcing him to sacrifice his allies and minions…_

"_Are you afraid of me now?" and he's speaking quietly, with furious purpose and lethal intent. He's not the idiot boy of his cards anymore, but a true warrior, an ANBU, the Elite of the Elite, "Because you once told me you'd never be frightened of me. But I'm going to ask you again, just to be sure. So… are you afraid of me now?" He grasps the collar of Kabuto's shirt, hoisting him from the cold and shattered ground and looming over him. The sight of a fox-masked ANBU fills his vision and Kabuto struggles, weakly jabbing a kunai deeply into Naruto's wrist, slicing through arteries, veins, and tendons. Naruto does not flinch, glowering at him with two burning red eyes like twin suns from the face of a long-eared kitsune._

"_Yes," Kabuto bawls, shaking from exertion, his hands forming the seals for a massive suicide technique._

_He never finishes it. Naruto's hand drops, thrusting the Rasengan into his bared throat. For just a second, the ANBU can feel the resistance of Kabuto's weak chakra against his ravening sphere of destruction, and then it is swept away as he can no longer maintain his throat's integrity and it gives way in a burst of pale flesh and crimson. Hot and sticky liquid splashes against his armor vest. Naruto does not release the Rasengan until his arm has passed through Kabuto's throat to the elbow, completely obliterating his jugular, esophagus, trachea, and spinal column. The head lolls sickeningly, like a rag doll that has been through the mill. He is coated in blood, mostly from Kabuto but some from those who barred his way. Tearing his arm free, he looks at his hand in wonder, shock, and not a little awe. Somewhere, deep inside, he feels gratified, glorified, but mostly sated. _

_He likes the killing._

Naruto recoils, repulsed by his memories. _No! I will not kill out of hatred or anger again!_ And with that, he slashes his fingers backward.

Sasuke is frozen in place, unable to breathe or even dodge as the razor thin ripple slices though the air toward his throat. His is telling his legs to move, to leap away or have his knees give out to drop beneath the encroaching blade but he cannot. His knees are locked and his back is ramrod-straight. He'd probably sweat if there were any time for it but as there isn't, all he has time to do is grit his teeth and slam shut his eyes. Because of this, he does not see it as the impossibly slim line of force wrenched off course by an unseen hand. It slashes past his face and he can feel the indescribable pull in this… _thing's_… wake, like ocean undertow.

It shears cleanly through a thousand-year-old oak without a sign of resistance. The tree slowly begins to topple, severed at neck height. It crumbles apart into chunks before it hits the ground, that _thing_ having shattered something critical, and then explodes into a million flaming splinters. The stored chakra of the tree has ignited and detonated. Naruto watches it fragment into innumerable glittering, jewel-bright motes of chakra that fall to earth like shooting stars. Tenten, who has been here all of five seconds, covers the slits of her mask with her hands, intent on protecting her eyes from burning wood bits. Kiba throws himself atop Akamaru, shielding his companion with his body. Neji simply spins up a Kaiten. If Sasuke has noticed that he is riddled with splinters that keep smoldering, he does not react. Most of them consume themselves and burn out before they touch ground, but a few manage to ignite dry forest brush.

The air is stale and dead now.

This is it. Sasuke's moment is about to happen. He doesn't dare to blink. His ear bleeds freely where that _thing_ severed a thin slice through the shell of his ear lobe. It is such a clean cut that Sasuke cannot feel it.

Naruto slumps tiredly. It's been a long mission, yes, and he hasn't gotten enough sleep lately, but something is different about this. All the fight has been taken out of him, his threatening posture gone. To him, he's proved his point and demonstrated his superiority, so there's no reason for him to continue this dance.

_You've failed! Your one chance to eliminate your foe without repercussion is gone. Weak and foolish… you haven't changed a bit, have you?_

_No,_ Naruto thinks, _I'm not going to kill someone - even Sasuke - over insults. I'm not that reckless anymore. _So he turns and walks away. He doesn't want to fight with Sasuke. There's no reason for them to be fighting, really, they're both Leaf-nin, they fight for the same cause. They shouldn't let a little thing like a woman come between them; they're on a mission. They need to be professional. This is not the proper venue to vent these frustrations.

"We'll finish this later, Sasuke," Naruto says and the fatigue is clearly audible in his voice. He sounds bitter and exhausted, as though he's walked a thousand miles today or aged a thousand years in this moment.

"We'll finish this _now,_" Sasuke growls, stomping toward the ANBU Commander. _Don't you fucking dare! Don't you turn your back on me, Uzumaki Naruto! Who the fuck do you think you are to turn away from _me? He whips out his hands, tears off his fingerless gloves and twirls his fingers in preparation for hand seals.

But Naruto is no longer watching him. The hatred and rage has drained from him, leaving him feeling an empty pit above his stomach and a cold chill down his spine, the feeling of unbridled power. Whatever he has done has taken those away as well. _What have I done? I struck out with… just like… _he doesn't think the name, but he imagines the grey-haired antagonist of his youth and holds in a shudder. Something is wrong. He's never used _it_ like this before. Naruto has struck out in anger, hatred, and pain, with the full intent of hurting someone. This is different. This is…

Sasuke, still oblivious to the agonizing pain of a thousand fiery splinters all along his back, lunges, hands forming familiar seals. _Do it right now_, he thinks. This is the moment, this is what he's been waiting for. Naruto's shield of invulnerability has been lowered, and he looks weak, fatigued, exhausted as he walks gingerly away. Everything is clear to the Uchiha progeny, his whole life has been leading up to this moment. The death of his clan, his betrayal of Konoha, Naruto's battles with Itachi, joining the Hunter-nin, and finally this mission, all of it has compounded into this single instant, three seconds in length, for Sasuke to have his revenge.

The harsh blue-white of his technique lights the clearing, but he's more than halfway to his target and Naruto hasn't noticed him coming. His hand shudders with the contained chakra, screaming 'Chi Chi Chi' as he focuses more chakra into his feet and leaps faster.

There are screams, Kiba is stumbling to his feet and trying to intercept Sasuke, but he'll never make it in time. Neji is shouting Naruto's name. There is a flash of tan clothing, orange leg warmers, and crimson hair as Gaara of the Desert interposes himself between Sasuke and Naruto. It's of no matter to Sasuke, who is aware of Gaara's movements and does not slow his manic charge. Gaara crosses his arms and draws his chakra to reinforce his flesh, perhaps making it strong enough to resist the Chidori. Instead of leading with the killing technique, Sasuke leaps, hooks his toes around the block and then kicks off the _inside_ of the Sand-nin's guard. He lofts over Gaara's head, twirls in the air, mere feet from Naruto's unprotected back, and lands running.

Nothing can stop him now. A kunai parts his hair, drawing a thin line of blood across his scalp. She has misjudged the location of his skull in his messy mass of raven hair. A gust of air shatters the ground beneath his feet, but he does not slow. The Kazekage did not aim for the lethal attack and in her haste, failed to aim at all really. Being diplomatic does that sometimes.

Naruto hears it, the sound of inevitability, the 'Chi Chi Chi' of the Copy-Ninja Sharingan Kakashi's only original technique, the Chidori. Lost in his thoughts as he was, he had never thought for a moment that Sasuke would strike him in the back, and certainly not with a lethal attack.

'Dodge,' a dark and silky voice whispers in his ear. It sounds inherently untrustworthy, so Naruto ignores it and turns on his heels.

Sasuke is bearing down on him, lightning-coated fingertips less than a meter away from him. He has the barest fraction of an instant to take in the scene, when his mind is blank and completely without expectations. From the hollows of the blank mask, the Hunter-nin's Sharingan eyes glow like two hellish coals. He has caught Naruto's countermove, the dodge he should have performed, and is already moving to intercept. The Chidori is held high, higher than Sasuke normally raises it, because he's striking for a different part of the body against an entirely different type of enemy. In the back of his mind, he knows that he's survived one Chidori in the chest, so another wouldn't be enough to take him down. Even the throat is a little bit circumspect, given that he's already survived having his throat slit on three separate occasions. Sasuke is aiming for the head, striking with an overhand blow, intending to puncture the relatively soft cranium and flash-vaporize the brain. If that doesn't kill Uzumaki Naruto, nothing will.

Sasuke's face is wild with triumph and anticipation behind his expressionless mask. He'd laugh if he had time for it, but as he doesn't he'll hold off until Naruto is on the ground and dead.

It's over in a second. Not a one of the observers sees a clear picture of the impact, but the sound of the Chidori's detonation destroys the fragile hope they hold. Between them, all the details are observed and it will be long hours of discussion and deliberation before they come to an agreement on it. Strong fingers wrapping around a wrist and pushing; a body is curving backward away from the blow; Sasuke stumbling a few steps beyond his target, hand no longer blazing. His aim was fouled by Naruto's hand; he missed.

But not enough. Fingertips touch the edge of a mask for just a second and that's more than enough. The fox face disintegrates instantly, the left half falling away smoldering. The Chidori's envelope, a veritable corona of blue light, scrapes along the right side of Naruto's face, peeling back the skin on his cheek and blackening the nose and lips. Teeth are blown into the back of his head, lacerating his throat. The muscles of his face, ever expressive, are stripped away. An eye explodes. His right ear is simply vaporized as Sasuke's palm cups the ear lobe in passing. Fluids flash-boil and rupture delicate membranes and bones, completely ruining Naruto's balance and hearing. The skin of his throat is torn away to reveal a shattered trachea and severed vocal chords, all charred and worthless. What is left of his wild blonde hair is burning.

Naruto topples backward, his body collapsing boneless. The only sound in the clearing is him hitting the forest floor. He lands on his side, arms and legs positioned unnaturally. His face is segmented, the left half twisted in shock and pain while the right half is a mess of stripped bone and ruined sinew. The blank Sharingan fades. One blue eye stares in horror into the distance as his shattered jaw dangles limply from the unharmed side of his mouth.

He isn't breathing.

No one else does.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

I am beginning to realize that not everyone is reading my fanfiction in the way that I imagine. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that and you (the reader) are more than free to do whatever you like, perhaps explaining my purpose would better serve everyone. I write this fanfic, Asinine Rationalizations, much like a tragedy but at heart it is a satirical black comedy. Hopefully we can all put the obvious joke in the previous sentence behind us. This fanfic, in my opinion, is probably enjoyed most when everyone reading it 'gets it' or is 'in on the joke' and I think that not everyone does. This is my fault, either I'm not writing with enough clarity or I'm trying too much by not putting everything in its proper place and order, I don't know. I have come to the decision that I will 'let you in' on the secret at the end, or wherever the hell I choose to stop. 'It's not you, it's me' really, because I am far from normal and my perspective is quite skewed. So I'll tell you what _I _think at the end and you can decide for yourself if I hit the mark I was aiming for.  
However, I will take this moment to engage in a little bit of double-standardizing. Whatever you _think_ is the meaning or purpose of my story, that's your decision and I am by no means disallowing your right to think for yourself. I have no problem with differing opinions on my work, as long as they do not stem from misunderstanding. I'm just trying to make sure that everyone 'gets it' and derives enjoyment in the manner I intend. If you don't like it, well, that's your prerogative and it's cool. I'm not going to change the intent behind my story just as you're not going to change your opinion and it's not right of me to ask you to.  
Point, point, point… where was it… oh, I remember now: Your opinion is your own. Make up your mind, because I have neither the inclination nor desire to make it up for you, but I'm a relatively nice guy and there are many people who are more than willing to tell you what to think or say. If you don't like my story or the point I'm striving to make with it, cool. Stop reading and do something else. It's your decision. If you like it, that's cool as well.

This is the longest I've ever gone without using the word 'fuck' in my author's notes. Fuck that shit.

Other business: I'll open up to some review responses. I've always like the idea of having a chaptered story if for the sole reason that I can respond to reviews. With that said, I'll give it a shot now.  
**-shinnotooni: **Thank you. Perhaps you are the first person that's truly understood what I am striving for in Naruto. As for your mention of controlling and narcissism, I'd like to note that those are both self-deprecating and wholly internalized. That alone makes him almost completely the opposite of Sasuke, who takes out his anger and aggression by punishing the people closest to him, where as Naruto takes it out on himself through self-delusion.  
Shikamaru: I don't like Shikamaru because I think people give him too much credit. In my estimation, he's not at all worthy of his cult-favorite status and certainly not worthy of the accolades Kishimoto has handed him. It comes down to this: _Any _ninja, regardless of rank, that sits down and closes his eyes to think in the middle of an exam fails automatically. Sitting down is a sign of defeat, conceding the victory. Closing your eyes is just stupid. Shikamaru should not have received the Chuunin vest because he was completely unable to _deliver_. As ninja actually have to _succeed_ at missions, not just go 90 of the distance and then give in, he is unsuited to be a leader in any fashion. Perhaps most important and sinister is the thought that Shikamaru wasn't willing to give it his all. He wasn't really interested in fighting or passing the exam, or being a Chuunin in the first place. I certainly would want to follow the commands of a guy who has a reputation for giving up when the going got tough, no matter how 'intelligent' he's perceived to be.  
Gaara: 1) Post-Chuunin exam emotional 180. 2) Essentially an ex-villain who's purpose is exhausted. 3) Poorly developed to be a Vegeta or Piccolo style villain-gone-hero, which is a tired concept in long-running anime anyway. 4) Why in God's name would the Sand make him Kazekage? They _fear_ and _hate_ him. 5) Part 2 Gaara shatters the power-envelope and crushes any and all hope I had that stealth and cleverness would 'come back into style' as it were. God forbid ninja act like _ninja._ 6) Most prevalent, the Fangirls.

**-Calyx, Death by Wasabi, Hujin, Jaky: **Thanks for your reviews. I had a page worth of response typed up to you, Calyx, but then I realized I was just being a condescending asshole and you don't deserve that from me, so I deleted it. In regards to Naruto and his seeming 'perfection' I will say that this is unintentional. While I don't believe that I've made a mistake in my portrayal, I do think something might be wrong. Perhaps we're just not communicating well. But I will ask this: How many of Naruto's 'tiny faults' are more than just childhood naivety and Kishimoto being cute? How many of them will Naruto have to grow beyond to achieve his ultimate goal and underlying drive (becoming Hokage?) Almost all of them. He'll have to change radically as a character and I've put him halfway there. It's not a pleasant journey by any means, and Naruto's walking the path in essentially reverse order to someone else's drum-beat, but that's all I'll say about it.  
Also, perhaps I'm not being clear enough with my POVs, in that some characters' admiration of Naruto is rose-tinting the whole thing, I don't know. If you don't like it or continue to disagree, you're more than welcome to stop reading and I won't be offended.

**-Blue Jeans:** You mean Sasuke's a masochist, right? Not sadist? Although… sadomasochist works out really well. Sure I'll let Sakura grow up. :chuckles: She'll certainly have to with what I've got planned for her. As for Tsunade, I don't give her a lot of credit as a leader and her internal monologue is foreshadowing something a bit more vicious later on.

**-Illjwamh:** Man, I'll _never_ be sure if I spelled that correctly. Anyway, I rather like using Sasuke as a plot device as well. He's sort of two-dimensional to me, and very reactionary. Animalistic, primal, I guess. Poke him, and he fights back. Take something from him, and he'll respond with violence to retrieve it. Sasuke, in my mind, works in violence like lesser men work in oils and watercolors. Very id. I'm going to give him a bit more importance, because his relevance is orthogonal to Naruto's change.

**-GC:** Ha! I'm still alive! And I hear you're in Japan. Damn my disappearing act. I hope that I can hear all about it when you return. Do I have some stories to tell you! You'll be so very... well, probably ashamed of knowing me, really.

**-Black/CityIdiot: **Good to know that people actually like this stuff enough to read it more than once. I'd like to have a fanclub, but for those of you who might be reading this and considering such an idea, it would probably be better for my ego if you didn't. It's _way_ to large already.

**-JohnnyG:** Yes, it happened. No, I'm not going to cover it in anything other than remembrances. Leaves most of it up to your imagination and takes the burden off of me. :waggles tongue at JohnnyG: Enjoy!

**-blisblop: **Dude, I have no idea what to make of you. I think you, out of all of my reviewers, might have the best grasp of the story, which confuses the hell out of me because I have _no idea_ what you're saying sometimes. There are some things you mention that aren't really relevant, but I'm not sure what to make of some parts of your review. So do you like my story now, because your first review seemed to indicate otherwise? As for the Hunters and Itachi, I figure they either couldn't or the Hokage believed that killing Itachi wasn't worth the losses it would incur. The boy/man killed the _entire Uchiha clan_ in one night. They're gonna need quite a few Hunters and most likely few of them will return.  
Also, why use your own offspring when you have a pair of completely usable, already-trained ninja like Sasuke and Naruto? Itachi would have to have offspring first (something I simply cannot see _this_ story's incarnation doing) and then training them to the exacting standards he needs. Sasuke and Naruto already have the drive needed to succeed and are farther along in training. His own offspring may not. Not worth the risk. Most importantly, Sasuke and Naruto are willing to _do it on their own_, because not even Itachi is omnipotent.

-**Everybody Else: **Hey, thanks for reviewing. Sometimes, I wonder if anyone is reading this at all or if I'm too intimidating to get reviewers. If I didn't respond to you with the level of detail you expected, my apologies, I must not have read something in your review that demanded a response. I'll try harder next time.

Next Chapter Preview:  
**Intermission B: **_ANBU; A Return to Basic Principles  
_Naruto half-sits, gaping at his examiner as though he's never quite seen anything like him.  
"Come get something to eat with me," the hedgehog-masked examiner says, "then I'll tell you how you did."  
_If he fails me, _Naruto thinks_, I'm sticking him with the bill._


End file.
